As far as mental anguish goes,
the old painters were no fools.
They understood how the mind,

"Isn't it time I slipped my leash?"
         she thought.         For him, what was it?
A quickening. A corner he hadn't turned.

Another feast day, and the bells are ringing.
The bells are ringing, and not more
than a handful of versts from here,

Through leaded windowpanes the light pours down
less on the holy figures than on objects
waiting to be used that tell the story:

One thing I think everyone is nostalgic for, though perhaps without being able to articulate it, is a time when literature would begin a little less abruptly, without a lot of facts about cracker-named people before you’re told who they are or why they’re there, like so many dog-wagging tails or a pair of narrating lips set chronicling by one who imagined that a tone of

The first Tuesday in this warm November
brushes Long Island in a last caress
before winter repels our communities

We stood in the midst
   of a great alluvial plain
         and felt the horizon coming

Forked lightning sears and stabs and stabs again.
The thunderstorm threatening all afternoon,
lowering and dark, has now arrived.

They're not of curves and shadows made.
They don't wear skirts to swoop and tease
the eye, nor toss their hair, nor sway.

I love candy, anything really chewy and so full of sugar it stings like a Sugar Daddy. No matter how much I twist and pull, the long caramel tongue lasts me the full Sunday matinee at Radio City Music Hall, but just in case, I’ve also stored in my pea coat pocket a quarter pound of Swedish Fish. When the magician is pulling a rabbit out of his hat, I