As for disappointments she’s had her share,
joining now with the horizon’s grief

Lemnos, you harbor me, moon-mountained
   and reticent, motionless in flux.
Dusk festers too long in the distance,

Since everything I claim might be denied,
when I have the strength to forget, I forget.
And when I don’t, what an Elysium

April 2020

When I came to—crocuses were pushing up
purple in my garden, return of the cooing dove—

and when I got out at Penn Station there were no faces
along the tracks—

wind blew through 32nd Street with a faint whiff of onions
and hair spray

The part
that flusters some, that flusters no one.

I stand by the stove, boiling tea, and trees climb down
through the winter hills to bring me news.

Grief, do me no favors. I have grown my hair long,
as you bid me. I have learned to roll
a coin below my knuckles. I have written down now

I followed a ribbon that trailed from a hand
and it led through the grazing of crowds upon pavement,

And when you are finally caught and questioned,
it is discovered, sadly, that you know

For the sightless, shapeless hope is vision,
cast back by the long thrower like a discus,
heavy like a discus, ridged, impacted.