Verse
Hirschfield, Robert & Flanders, Jane & Porter, Anne & Sullivan, James
Robert Hirschfield Mr. John Ficken. Dead of Cancer, SI. Rose's Home Your Lazarus smile, Sly as a risen knife, Summoned the angels In the linen closet. Your bones, sea foam, Turned like...
...an old wife beat the mattress till it rose tike meringue...
...And I praise you that from vacant lots Prom only broken glass and candy-wrappers You raise up the blue chicory flowers, I thank you for mat secret praise Which burns in every creature, And I ask you to bring us to life Out of every sort of death And teach us mercy...
...And I will praise you for crickets...
...You hurled your bed rails Into the burning harbor And ran, ran...
...A laughing green hammer Pounded the East River...
...Your bones, sea foam, Turned like twine On their misbegotten rack...
...James Sullivan Genuine Identity In the presence of a dying woman I think of you, my dear., alive and well, Think how even you and I are human, Each skeleton a secret inner shell Treasuring at levels far less shallow Than lovely surfaces of form and face Genuine identity...
...On starry autumn nights When the earth is cooling Their rusty diminutive music Repeated over and over Is the very marrow of peace...
...Old soldier John, Cold as a rake, Buttocks cratered Beneath a silent cross, We hitched our cruel pulse To your ankle...
...A peasant built the frame...
...Anne Porter Leavetaking Nearing the start of that mysterious last season Which brings us to the close of the other four, I'm somewhat afraid and don't know how to prepare, So I will praise you...
...We wallow Through flesh in search of a serener place...
...I will praise you for the glaze on the buttercups And the pearly scent of wild fresh water And the great cross-bow shapes of swans flying over With that strong silken sound of wings Which you gave them when you made them without voices...
...the sheets are what they are, casting no shadows...
...Empty, morning light pours in like wine...
...Narrow, he slept alone, tossing between two pillows, while it carried him bumpily, to the ball...
...The orange night light, Sluggish third eye, Straddled your jaw's crematorium...
...Jane Flanders Van Gogh's Bed Is Orange, like Cinderella's coach, like the sun when he looked it straight in the eye...
...Clumsy, but friendly...
...And I will praise you for crows' calling from tree-tops Which was the speech of my first village, And for the sparrow's flash of song Flinging to me in an instant The joy of a child who woke Each morning to the freedom Of her mother's unclouded love And lived in it like a country...
Vol. 109 • September 1982 • No. 16
