Veteran's Day

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What used to be called
Armistice Day, but there were, of course,
more wars. The photo on the top fold
of the morning paper:
Baghdad, another suicide bombing.
The armored American solider
there to investigate, trying
to piece together this day pulled to pieces
as blood seeps into his boots.
Glass shards scattered everywhere,
a man’s scalp in the ceiling fan,
blood splattered in the shape
a child would use to draw a sunrise.
The tiled wall pocked with human-shaped
blast shadows, like those burned
into the sidewalks of Hiroshima.
No peace here among the wreckage of the dead.
A chair, upright in the floating dust,
waits for its person.

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Tree, Dusk, Distance

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Through blossomed branches
I glimpse the edge of the world,
its long purple clouds.

*

Trees silhouetted
in still, silent summer dusk;
day's birds come to rest.

*

Now the leaves turn red,
shiver in a fading light
far hills extinguish.

*

The horizon's trees
rub their branches together
to start a fire.

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Milkweed

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The spiked bone
cracked open, threaded
to a dried stalk,
disheveled by the mower.

A layer of matted marrow,
then the flat round
orange seeds inside,
stacked dense as scales,
and the white,
web-thin wings.

Their light tassels
flick open, the breeze
eases them from my hand.
While plumes speckle
this rusting
October field.

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Che Fece...Il Gran Rifiuto

--after Cavafy

I arrange the bones of my regret
in the light of a black candle.

Smoke writhes in the air,
clouds this gallery of memory
in which I have hung
a leaf, a feather,
two tear-dimmed eyes.

When the candle flame finally burns out
its image haunts the darkness.


Dante, Inferno III.60: "him / who made...the great refusal"

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