Climbing the stairs, slowly, on my palms
and soles, bent far forward, I see
my shins closer than usual—

The hospital lobby was lined with short 
and long views of Audubon’s birds,
the tallest ones’ necks curved, all the way

When I go to the bathroom I see a beetle in the tub,
black, with a band of stone color
around the center, granite with a trace of

Three years after my father’s death
he goes back to work. Unemployed
for 25 years, he’s very glad to be

A year after he left I thought of the day he’d been 
sick and I’d cut my then-husband’s hair 
to cheer him up. First I combed it, 

We were driving north, through the snow, you said
you’d turned 21 during Vietnam, you were
1-A. The road curved

As soon as my sister and I got out of our
mother’s house, all we wanted to
do was fuck, obliterate

Finally they got the Singles problem under control, they made it scientific. They opened huge Sex Centers—you could simply go and state what you want and they would find you someone who wanted that too. You would stand under a sign saying I Like To Be Touched and Held and when someone came and stood under the sign saying I Like To Touch and Hold they would send the two of you off together.

You could never really say what it is like,
this hour of drinking wine together
on a hot summer night, in the living room

I knelt down
  at the edge of the water,
     and if the white birds standing