Found in Willow Springs 88
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Simple Science
Our first time, I was not taking field notes.
The gift was too great to jot down.
Then together for years we bothered
wild terrain to botanize or bug.
When he watered the columned grape arbor
in his life’s last hour
I didn’t see the Higher Power
hieroglyph his fate in the mist.
It is long past the season of the notebook
and the prosody of the alpenstock.
Too late to scribe with my eye
the scrub-jay fishing from a stone,
to muffle look, look and grip
my husband’s wrist
with my left that can’t write.
The scribbler on some occasions
is a cloud, and, too, a corpulent eraser.
Beware of muddy, grassy diaries.
They’ll entrap the snoop’s boots
bent on finding wonders
in those writingfields:
owl-shat moon-bones, dark fountains of ants,
a harebell nodding as if reading.
Portraits in My Room
1.
Of a blue-blush suit, you’re
sullen; yet before a sapphire
bay, you’re sparkle. Consort
of painters, wife of John
Sloan’s fame. And this, by
Agnes Richmond. Thick-brushed
hair makes a premonition
over your ear.
A distant boat, going further away.
Your chin shades your throat.
It drank much, said rumors.
Stop posing, Dolly. Pause.
2.
Three times women
rest their chin in a palm—
Why we do I don’t
know except girlhood
starts it when the hand
is small, and the chin
a stage beyond
babyish.
The eyes change too
—the hand has something to do
with the glance.
Mouth always closed—
you can’t talk in that pose.
But speak? “Hmmmm.”
