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me because it couldn’t get out.
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I saw stones that had come
From a great purple distance
Huddle around the front door.
Grocery
Figure or figures unknown
Keep a store
Keep it open
Nights and all day Sunday
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Half of what they sell
Will kill you
The other half
Makes you go back for more
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Too cheap to turn on the lights
Hard to tell what it is
They’ve got on the counter
What it is you’re paying for
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All the rigors
All the solemnities
Of a brass scale imperceptibly quivering
In the early winter dusk
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One of its pans
For their innards
The other one for yours—
And yours heavier
Classic Ballroom Dances
Grandmothers who wring the necks
Of chickens; old nuns
With names like Theresa, Marianne,
Who pull schoolboys by the ear;
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The intricate steps of pickpockets
Working the crowd of the curious
At the scene of an accident; the slow shuffle
Of the evangelist with a sandwich board;
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The hesitation of the early-morning customer
Peeking through the window grille
Of a pawnshop; the weave of a little kid
Who is walking to school with eyes closed;
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And the ancient lovers, cheek to cheek,
On the dance floor of the Union Hall,
Where they also hold charity raffles
On rainy Monday nights of an eternal November.
Progress Report
And how are the rats doing in the maze?
The gray one in a baggy fur coat
Appears dazed, the rest squeeze past him
Biting and squealing.
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A pretty young attendant has him by the tail.
She is going to slit him open.
The blade glints and so do the beads
Of perspiration on her forehead.
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His cousins are still running in circles.
The damp, foul-smelling sewer
Where they nuzzled their mother’s teat
Is what they hope to see at the next turn.
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Already she’s yanked his heart out,
And he doesn’t know what for?
Neither does she at this moment
Watching his eyes glaze, his whiskers twitch.
Winter Night
The church is an iceberg.
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It’s the wind. It must be blowing tonight
Out of those galactic orchards,
Their Copernican pits and stones.
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The monster created by the mad Dr. Frankenstein
Sailed for the New World,
And ended up some place like New Hampshire.
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Actually, it’s just a local drunk,
Knocking with a snow shovel,
Wanting to go in and warm himself.
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An iceberg, the book says, is a large drifting
Piece of ice, broken off a glacier.
The Cold
As if in a presence of an intelligence
Concentrating. I thought myself
Scrutinized and measured closely
By the sky and the earth,
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And then algebraized and entered
In a notebook page blank and white,
Except for the faint blue lines
Which might have been bars,
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For I kept walking and walking,
And it got darker and then there was
A flicker of a light or two
Far above and beyond my cage.
Devotions
    for Michael Anania
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The hundred-year-old servants
Are polishing the family silver,
And recalling the little master dressed as a girl
Peeing in a chamber pot.
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Now he is away hunting with Madame.
The reverend dropped by this afternoon
And inquired amiably after them.
His pink fingers were like squirming piglets.
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Even the Siamese cats like to sit and gaze,
On days when it rains and the fire is lit,
At the grandfather with waxed mustache-tips
Scowling out of the heavy picture frame.
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They were quick to learn respect
And what is expected of them, these former
Farm boys and girls stealing glances
At themselves in spoons large and small.
Cold Blue Tinge
The pink-cheeked Jesus
Thumbtacked above
The cold gas stove,
And the boy sitting on the piss pot
Blowing soap bubbles
For the black kitten to catch.
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Very peaceful, except
There’s a faint moan
From the next room.
His mother’s asking
For some more pills,
But there’s no reply.
The bubbles are quiet,
And kitten is sleepy.
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All his brothers and sisters
Have been drowned.
He’ll have a long life, though,
Catching mice for the baker,
And the undertaker.
The Writings of the Mystics
On the counter