They had had it in mind to adopt a retired whippet,
which would have been easy for a retired ballet
dancer, if she had been one, and easy on the wallet
for him, an actuary. But she was a pellet-
and-woodstove saleswoman. They looked at a basset.
1.
Bobtail skin—fat and flexibly crisp—shucked
in a roll of fencing wire in the red shed: not dead
the bearer of dead skin, expanded even.
High up on fire escapes the schoolgirls clapped
erasers, chalk dust floating in a cloud,
the words and numbers scripted by the nuns
freed to autumnal treetops.
The younger junkies, for a thrill, would toss
Each other roof to rowhouse roof across
Thin alleyways of light
They scampered as if the devil
was herding them off the ledge,
each one following the others,
grass trampled black,
Bring me the birds of Rhiannon—
the ones that rouse the dead and make
the living sleep—to entertain me
that night. —The Mabinogi
Ram skulls I brought home from the fields
line the wall and survey the borage
that has spread wild up by the house,
By VALERIE DUFF
We are following the hearse,
the body in the hearse steady
as a tree, Not my father
any longer jagged timber,
Afterwards everything whitened
like paper or breath—
The room was suddenly anchored to itself,
the chains stopped groaning.
I knew I could not leave with you.
The sea outside was like the sea
on the map. A sea-god was blowing
into a crosshatched arc of sails.
How do I know
this stark room, the wooden chair,
the antique book in its lap,
the drawers lined with cedar,
the two folded shirts, his and mine,
the map of the Mediterranean World
in a frame, its sea faded turquoise?
Have you come here too?
Is this a place you recognize?
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Celebrating 15 Years