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“My mother lit me (father was her match)
And set me in a draught to catch my breath.

If there are churches
This is where a church might be,
A theatre if there are theatres, or
A store.

Wingbones shattered—feathers
Scattered over the continent—
The four unbroken animal limbs beating
A shadow-wind to keep aloft:

This dice-white Princess desk phone
Is a ghost, wearing a small bell
About its throat.

Tenderest pendulum,
     Your slender stem is
          Tremulous as it enters
               The minute’s fundamental;

As the scroll unrolls, scales
Ripple by the glass like fishes
Flashing gaseous tails,

Butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth,
That wide wet kisser we
Smacked on to justify a pipe.

For many people today the CIA is a three-letter symbol for practices reviled with four-letter words. In­ deed, in some circles, writing about the Central Intelligence Agency has become an exercise in political pornography: the subject...

The birth and longevity of a great University, “based,” as the founder of the University of Virginia said, “on the illimitable freedom of the human mind,” would be a cause for celebration under any circumstances. The celebration is...