God Has A Brown Voice, As Soft

I Have Forgiven All The Old Actors For Dying. A New One Comes On With The Same Lines, Like Large White Growths, In His Mouth. The Dancers Come On From The Wings, Perfectly Mated.

Poetry To Me Is Prayer.

The Summer Has Seized You, As When, Last Month In Amalfi, I Saw Lemons As Large As Your Desk-side Globe-that Miniature Map Of The World-and I Could Mention, Too, The Market Stalls Of Mushrooms And Garlic Bugs All Engorged. Or I Even Think Of The Orchard Next Door, Where The Berries Are Done And The Apples Are Beginning To Swell. And Once, With Our First Backyard,i Remember I Planted An Acre Of Yellow Beans We Couldn't Eat.

God Went Out Of Me As If The Sea Dried Up Like Sandpaper, As If The Sun Became A Latrine.

And What Of The Dead? They Lie Without Shoes In The Stone Boats. They Are More Like Stone Than The Sea Would Be If It Stopped. They Refuse To Be Blessed, Throat, Eye And Knucklebone.