Our road’s no wider than yours. We often fall from the height. We’re broken too, but our lack of attention doesn’t force us to climb the rope again. Your slightest mistake can kill you. 

We are a nice family.

My sister Brindille, the first-born, used to be married. She had an hourglass which indicated the time when the water of the ocean would reach a secret point on the hill. 

It really is amusing
that for all the centuries of mankind
the problem has been how

Do not rush.
Sudden sinkings have been rare,
though, eventually, the vessel does.

The children play at the Luxembourg fountain.
Their small ships catching wind and sail out and come round again.

It’s been suggested by the New Radicals
in America that perhaps the best, no,
the penultimate act would be, of all things,

In the July hot smelly horse manure dust
out behind old man Mooney’s barn
that sits just at the outskirts of the town

I don’t see my mother dancing—
in my thoughts she still trims vines
sprayed blue with copper sulfate

My father was a forester in the Alpine woods
and also in the Andes. He roamed about the
under brush, rode a horse and carried a thin

It was only a Daisy,
the kind sold by coupon off the backs of comic books:
Gee Dad it’s a Daisy! He grins up at his father