All this happened when I was young:

I stopped knowing anybody. I waited for somebody to know me. I knew most of my strangers in depth; acquaintanceship stifled this; strangeness had to be the bond. Maybe I was too small to be seen. 

Another fall dusk and I was out
  with my son to pick up
the fallen walnuts, holding them to

There are many facts in the world.
Most are passengers, but some
Drive the car.

Field is frozen, it doesn’t move
even as snow starts to cover it.
Nothing grows there.

I saw my name in print the other day
with 1932 and then a blank
and knew that even now some grassy bank

That summer the sand rusted,
The twigs cracked more easily. A worker was sent for
To carry away broken pipes and in their place put

That love of hospitality 
                                                 & the old Irish 
passion for food and drink            (good food, 

The big claw takes its angle
and drives down hard,
shivering Kezar’s concrete bleachers

Smoking a cigarette in a classroom
a woman is copying sentences from
a book called Our American Way of Life

A large unpleasant woman
Is chasing a songbird around the kitchen
With a broom shouting