On this day, anno 1966
The thin Scandinavian girl whose fine-nosed
                      white collie sniffs along the shaded walk.

Life is beautiful.             However
The only truly human, American expressions
                           of its staggering rich moments

United at first
ham and cheese fall apart and slip 
             through my trembling hands

As soon as I climb into the car
I fold my dark blanket
and close my eyes against it

Some men say I've forgotten why I sing,
as if I were a happy, careless thing.

But just my speechless body stayed behind—

In the night, when the newspaper’s
proofreader died
he died without reading the proof.

Nothing is left but the pyramids.
How heavy the stones of the pyramids are!

I cannot tell you when, where
in what city or time
I saw this crime.

You will not discover in my dying body’s kidneys’ yield, who.
All your theory of that and the other is false. Nor is any
woman simple. We encompass men before they’re birthed

I see New Englandly, and the miles gauged in the end are my own
Thousand footsteps measured warily around the sinking neck
Of my father’s hill beneath my crisp worn dress that hangs,