VQR Online

 A man I know hews space

from trees. Hauls himself up there, days,

Late May, 1754: George Washington watches
as one of his confederates, the Iroquois warrior
Half-King, reaches down to the corpse
of a freshly slain French ensign,

In post-9/11 America there has come to be what I think of as the Ministry of False Alarms. The Ministry of False Alarms constantly raises the level of fear inside the United States. I’m not sure what these various rainbow-colored alerts are...

I stood with Bella in the sunny piazza in Livorno, one noon in May. My wife had gone to buy French francs; the era of the euro had not yet arrived. I noted to the collie that this was a city full of pretty girls … but what were we getting...

I can imagine you on it. The museum placard
declares it able fit for dozens
with a keel spine longer than these other boats

Where there were only dirt and needles,
I laid a floor of hardwood and shellac.
I plaited walls into the forest.

Last century we took a lot of shots
Of what we did, framing things for Look and Life
So we could see us and our lot