Loved, we have no need for love;
thieves, surprised in other people’s houses, we wait for night,
we touch our bodies like jewels made of paste.

Epigrams, 56

When I began writing I felt like a constellation,
                                some new fixture in the sky,
a lamp with twenty wicks, or at least
                                an eternal flame. It was mostly a lie
I told myself, though a few

Iambi, 203

                                I’m not exactly from poverty, or from obscurity,
but I think it’s okay for me to complain.

                                Some people treat the right, or the ability
to make, or to talk about, poetry

                                as a matter of being born in the right place,
or as some kind of laying on of hands.

Impatient at the ferry slip, he hoped
He'd long be out of Beaufort when they heard

You were gravely pulling up his best necktie,
Smoothing down his collar for that calm journey.
He drew off the body. a limp, soiled garment,

A fragile ringing all round suddenly
Awaking me, thought-stupid , elsewhere, chill,
My eyes on nothing but my road , my mind

Pale, bone tired, she raised herself on one elbow,
Brushed her damp hair back with uncertain fingers.

Without fear or fault, the green
Expanse of it drops off at acute
Angles, sudden and inconveniently,

Too serious
no longer, we
                have learned to love

At one time, under this same title,
I told the whole story of the kidnapped girl
and her Mexican tortures.