I got off my plane in a strange country
And saw you standing in the airport
With a blind smile, your eyes like diamonds,

Though we're pages apart this time,
just being in the same issue
is like being at a party together.

The right movement of the right foot
on dirt under tree-green grass underfoot,
the right movement of the left foot:

The first Tuesday in this warm November
brushes Long Island in a last caress
before winter repels our communities

We stood in the midst
   of a great alluvial plain
         and felt the horizon coming

Forked lightning sears and stabs and stabs again.
The thunderstorm threatening all afternoon,
lowering and dark, has now arrived.

They're not of curves and shadows made.
They don't wear skirts to swoop and tease
the eye, nor toss their hair, nor sway.

Out where Lethe meets the sea, past the bend
in the long arm of water, where the waves
gesture casually at the beach, is rest.

I love candy, anything really chewy and so full of sugar it stings like a Sugar Daddy. No matter how much I twist and pull, the long caramel tongue lasts me the full Sunday matinee at Radio City Music Hall, but just in case, I’ve also stored in my pea coat pocket a quarter pound of Swedish Fish. When the magician is pulling a rabbit out of his hat, I

I was sick, more or less, for the whole trip,
and so she got to know the pharmacists
of Venice, claiming it would help to sip