When you write something
you want it to live—
you have that obligation, to give it

Ever obliging, faithful, good parents that they are,
when he’s happiest, in his happy bed, his wife against him,
they call to him, his tutelary spirits of a moment

My mother said.
All surgeons want to do is surge.
And as one took the staples from her skull

I fell with my father through space
In a space module as round
                  as your thumb

On a Washington Heights corner in the panting swelter,
I learned that grit was not hominy, or teeth, but proud
   squalor.

deek-teh
deek-tah-tor
behn-zeen
dee-seh-pleen

I lie quiet among my possible suits,
feet to head, feet to head.
Blue, black, white, red.

Feelings seem like made-up things, 
though I know they’re not.   

Watching little Henry, six, scoop up blueberries
and shovel them into his mouth, possessed.
I’m so glad I brought blueberries—wish my kids

It's a wave, isn't it? Not a particle,
A fresh, cool wave so why am I flushed
and not washed?
Why dirtier than before?