The Postman

Satchel on hip
the postman goes
from doorstep to doorstep
and stooping sows

each letterbox
with seed. His right
hand all the morning makes,
the same half circle. White

seed he scatters,
a fistful of
featureless letters
pregnant with ruin or love.

Moscow for Teens

Our borrowed kitten, black and white like ice,
Chases full bottles of aspirin and makes no sound.

Sum mer is hard to see through: slags of dust
Deform the coppery air. Orioles in the elms?

St. Michael roams the curbs and perezhods,
Handing out his weapons of bruised fruit;

Baize

I should have tried harder
to love Steve Davis.
If not for his neat bow tie
then for his rare motor skills.

Good hand-eye co-ordination
smooths the path of a relationship.
At least one of you must have it,
like hope, and the ability

to love and keep one's word.
There was much I failed to understand
that Steve tried to explain:
that life's a process of elimination,

Far Away

From the edge of her cornfield you could
Take the path of the weeds to the house

Some said she was deaf, so I waited
Until I saw that she noticed my shadow.

We sat outside the whole day. I remember
Her deep blue apron smelled of wild apples,

Slowly, the short noon shadows around the garden

Street Scene In Blue

The street we once walked paints itself
damson with a lamp lit for shadows,
where figures fade to blue under the lamp's
halo ring, fading into alleyways, into promises
of you. And then my head becomes a DVD
replaying things that were mixed with things
that might have been, intercutting close-ups
with tracking-shots of you next to me,