When I heard he had entered the harbor,
and circled the wharf for days,
I expected the worst: shallow water,

It is Sunday, day of roughhousing. We are let out in the woods. The young boys wrestle and butt their heads together like sheep—a circle forms; claps and shouts fill the air. The women, brown and glossy, gather round the banjo player, or simply lie in the sun, legs and aprons folded.

On the radio a canary bewailed her luck
while the county outside was kicking with rain.

A bench, a sofa, anyplace flat—
just let me down
somewhere quiet, please,
a strange lap, a patch of grass . . .

You prefer me invisible, no more than
a crisp salute far away from
your silks and firewood and woolens.

The sky is not a glass of anything;
it winks, it’s a parable,
the kind your mother told whenever

Homepage image courtesy of Egres73, Wikimedia Commons

They were poor then but everyone was poor.
He hadn’t minded the sweeping,
just the thought of it

What did she know about Africa
Were there lakes like this one
with a rowboat pushed under the pier?

The panic grass is pushing up
serenity into an air
that has at last regained its pale.

My God, they were all so beautiful,
each parchment trumpeting its cursive praise
of Allah, whose residence m Istanbul