They seem to be gliding toward me, in dresses,
they float and turn, in summer floral, the
ladies of the fruit trees, in ruffles, in dishevel,

They put a roof over our heads.
Each tile was a slab of clay laid over a
thigh and bent until it dried bent,

naked and noiseless, and when I looked at her
she looked at me so directly,

Standing in the ladies’ room line,
in the temple basement, the woman in front of me
said, “I’ve been sitting behind you, admiring

Finally someone just drops it and breaks it
like a mercy killing, the cow butter dish,
it cracks easily into five pieces,

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,