First Marriage
We rented a yellow house
on the edge of a schoolyard
I could not see on
foggy winter mornings —
rolling mist, dim lights,
a honk, a muffled motor,
nothing to do but wait
for the world I knew
to be released again.
After you left for work
I'd hear the children's cries,
pleasure and pain so mixed
I couldn't tell whether
to rescue or reminisce.
Midmorning, the fog would lift:
sun shafts beamed like searchlights
through the bars of the jungle gym,
the chain-link swings, the seesaw,
the silver tongue of the slide.
On the schoolhouse windows
pilgrims and turkeys filled the panes,
then Santa and doily snowflakes.
Everywhere I read the signs.
Late afternoon, when school was out,
I'd cross the street to the empty yard
and tip the seesaw back andforth,
run my fingers down the slide,
then set to motion all the swings,
just to hear the chain links clink.
On A Hill Above Your House
Late night I search for your house
in the dark valley below.
The children's lights have long gone out,
and the lovers' yearning hands
have touched the fond familiar spots
like grazing animals at dusk
returning to the glowing barn.
You sleep alone in a darkened house.
While up at midnight, insomniac,
I wonder which might be your home
among the shadowy clumps below.
A car goes by, an unstrung light
moving along a strip of road.
Above, the mirroring autumn sky
reflects the twinkling neighborhood.
By habit I look up to wish
on the first star that I see.
But when my eye fastens on one
my mind is blank of anything
but the thought of you below
your long lean body lost in sleep.
Dream Girl
I dreamed of you making
love to a young version
of me with a younger
version of yourself,
and I wonder if our dreams
are the whims skimmed off
our richly committed hearts
or disclose our true desires?
Should we throw caution
to our dreams and wake,
youthful middle-aged lovers,
forsaking our aging partners,
existing all other loves
to rewrite them in a new hand
now that we understand
what it is to live by heart?
I don't know any answers,
but I dreamed of you touching
the tender skin of a girl
I could no longer be,
so young was she, so innocent
of these and other questions,
so quick to say love
and mean by it forever.
_____________________
Visitations
Knopf 2026
