Three hot-eyed kids hard on a fix’s heels.
Enraged that the cash he had on him was small,
Did in James Edmondson, famed vaudeville’s

 The apparition of these faces in the bough;
Crowds on a wet, black petal.

The apparition of these boughs in the face;
Crowds on a wet, black petal.

The Venetian Republic regarded the art of mirror-making as a state secret, to be conserved by any sanction necessary, including the most extreme.

                                  •

I got this from a man on the street
in Richmond, circa 1964, who
offered me an easy job in his hotel

I sit by the window all morning
watching the planes make final approaches.
Each of them gathers and steadies itself

First the Chickadees take
their share, then fly
to the bittersweet vine,

My mother comes back from a trip downtown to the dimestore. She has brought me a surprise. It is still in her purse.

Beyond the pond where dragonflies 
Lie bedded down among the reeds 
And bullfrogs clock the racing days 

Once to wake proud in a burst of sunlight
as bearing news of real significance,
to risk cold coffee for this native hour

It is dark now.
Nets of snow 
tumble about us.