Hummingbird Sleep: Poems, 2009-2011

Contents

Starting Out from Ted Hughes’ Letters 1 My Face and My Voice 4 Lightning Bugs and the Pleiades 9 My Segment on the NewsHour 12 Accordion Sections 14 Our Next Dying 19 Word Choice 22 Snow Day, the Word God, and the Threat of the Power Going Off 25 Old Men Out Walking 28 Inbetween Deaths 32 The Splinter and the Riversticks 35 The Scar on the Back of My Right Hand 37 The Tuesday before Thanksgiving 38 Tuck’s Coach 40 Piecemeal 41 Rise & Fall 44 November Nights 45 A Perfect New Moon 47 Working Parts 48 Boscage 49 Iron-Knocking 51 Catkins 52 Darling 54 Celery Hearts 55 Two Squirrel Stories 56 There Ain’t Nothing Like It 58 He said, Benjamin my son said, . . . 64 Salinger in Arabic 65 Peter O’Callahan’s Dream of Me Not Being Here 68 Witness 71 A Sky-Opening 73 Middle Falls 74 Occasional 76 Seagull 77 Hummingbird Sleep 79 The VOICE inside WATER 80 Got to Stop 90 What I Am Sure Of 91 Coffeehouse Notes 93 Fox 95 Robert and Noah 96 Original Sins 97 It Is Raining with the Sun Out 99 Blessing-Bow 101 Anytime 103 Midafternoon Midsummer 104 We Laugh Together 105 The Gift of a Comeback 107 Heavy Rain in the Parking Lot 110 Wittgenstein 111 Grief in the Tub 112 notes 113 acknowledgments 117 c o n t e n t s This page intentionally left blank Hummingbird Sleep This page intentionally left blank ...