Catherine’s Poem
There is no room for a story,
not even really mine. I look
and look. The world is doing
something so unsavory.
The dirty sparrows bathe
in the storm run-off. Robins
go for the cicadas’ empty shape.
We just bicker about money,
sex, and dinner plans,
but we’re so in love—still expecting
everything miracular.
The seagull is almost
stilled against the breeze.
Steady and unflapped like
in a painting or a dream. The gull
gives in and falls back—
It’s that monumental.
Everything, and everything
between us.
Looking at Robert Blake
After Wallace Stevens
Among a stretch of cold brick houses,
Robert was the only moving thing.
He was of three minds the way
three windows appear on the side
of a red neighborhood home. It
was evening. It had been snowing
all evening.
Robert whirled through the cosmos.
He was a small part
of what we don’t yet understand.
If I and myself are one,
then I and myself and Robert are one.
It was indecipherable, Robert’s shadow.
It moved across the walls—sharp
one moment; gone the next.
Robert is involved in all I know.
When Robert flies out of sight,
he marks the edge of truth
with disbelief.
At the sight of him
there! there!
in the green light,
he was silent as
a fish, as a cloud,
as, yes, three minds.
Robert enjoys riding over London
in his glowing coach! He mistook
desire for the song of the blackbird.
He strolls along the river.
He keeps time to himself.
It had been evening all afternoon
and Robert sat humming
in the limbs of the field elm.
He was dead and in love
and in love with his death.
The Tyger
People love to ask: but have you really seen the Tyger?
Oh, I’ve seen the Tyger—the one
with thick haunches that moves slowly
through the apartment each night
waiting in the thick of it
no words
only the knowledge,
that a good life
is built with a hammer
and a want—
The furnace is smudged with grease.
The brain is hot.
Have I seen the Tyger? I am the Tyger—
And, of course, I’m afraid of my life.