Beautiful Woman
A. R. Ammons


The spring
in

her step
has

turned to
fall

My Papa's Waltz
Theodore Roethke


The whiskey on your breath
Could make a small boy dizzy;
But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy.

We romped until the pans
Slid from the kitchen shelf;
My mother's countenance
Could not unfrown itself.

The hand that held my wrist
Was battered on one knuckle;
At every step you missed
My right ear scraped a buckle.

You beat time on my head
With a palm caked hard by dirt,
Then waltzed me off to bed
Still clinging to your shirt.

Red Gloves Thrown in Rose Bush
Dean Young


If only bodies weren't so beautiful.
Even rabbits are made of firecrackers
so tiny they tickle your hand.
If only the infirmities,
blocked neural pathways, leg braces
and bandages didn't make everyone
look like they're dancing.
Breathing will destroy us, hearts
like ninja stars stuck in the sternums
of granite caesars. Should I worry
people have stopped saying how skinny
and pale I am. Paul may destroy the kitchen
but he's the best cook I know.
Seared tuna, pesto risotto—where
did he get those tomatoes?—what a war
must be fought for simplicity!
Even the alligator, flipped over,
is soft as an eyelid. Hans, the trapezist,
got everyone high on New Year's Eve
with a single joint, the girl he was with
a sequin it was impossible not to want
to try to catch without a net.
Across the bay, fireworks punched
luminous bruises in the fog.
If only my body wasn't borrowed from dust!

Slattern
Kate Clanchy


I leave myself about slatternly,
bits of me, and times I liked:
I let them go on lying where
they fall, crumple, if they will,
I know fine how to make them walk
and breathe again. Sometimes at night,
or on the train, I dream I'm dancing,
or lying in someone's arms who says
he loves my eyes in French, and again
and again I am walking up your road,
that first time, bidden and wanted,
the blossom on the trees, light,
light and buoyant. Pull yourself
together, they say, quite rightly,
but she is stubborn, that girl,
that hopeful one, still walking.

Winter Insomnia
Raymond Carver


The mind can't sleep, can only lie awake and
gorge, listening to the snow gather as
for some final assault.

It wishes Chekov were here to minister
something—three drops of valerian, a glass
of rose water—anything, it wouldn't matter.

The mind would like to get out of here
onto the snow. It would like to run
with a pack of shaggy animals, all teeth,

under the moon, across the snow, leaving
no prints or spoor, nothing behind.
The mind is sick tonight.

Single Traveller
P. K. Page


What is this love that is my life's companion?
Shape-changer, sometimes faceless, this companion.

Single traveller, I wander a wasting world
awaiting the much anticipated Companion.

A trillium covered wood one April day
served as a nearly consummate companion.

A horse, two dogs, some cats, a blue macaw
each in its turn became a loyal companion.

Behind the loved embrace, a face of light –
demon or angel – lures me from my companion.

The street of love is neither wide nor narrow.
Its width depends on me and my companion.

Am I too bound and blinded by course wrappings
ever to know true love as my companion?

O Poet, squanderer of time and talents
why do you search for love as your Companion?

The Dragonfly
Louise Bogan


You are made of almost nothing
But of enough
To be great eyes
And diaphanous double vans;
To be ceaseless movement,
Unending hunger
Grappling love.

Link between water and air,
Earth repels you.
Light touches you only to shift into iridescence
Upon you body and wings.

Twice-born, predator,
You split into the heat.
Swift beyond calculation or capture
You dart into the shadow
Which consumes you.

You rocket into the day.
But at last, when the wind flattens the grasses, 
For you, the design and the purpose stop.

And you fall
With all the husks of summer.