Persephone

Contents

9 Contents Anonymously Yours: Autobiography On the Shortest Day of the Year 21 I Have Lost the Sound 22 Sleeping with Lorca 23 You Wonder a Woman Who Doesn’t Seem Quite Like Me 24 Being Jewish in a Small Town 26 Christmas Tree 28 The Photographs with My Hair Up 29 Not Writing for Days 30 When I See Vermeer’s “The Woman Holding A Balance” 32 Ballet Du Maurais 34 The Lost Photograph 36 Lips 38 Sometimes when I Take the Escalator Deep Underground 40 Lovers and Leavers Sometimes It Was Your Gone Leg 43 Trying to Write the Blue Out of Me 44 Though I Didn’t See It 45 In the Dream of Having Too Much I Have to Do 46 Cape Cod, Still High on Having the Biopsy Negative 47 The Man Who Mostly Lip Reads 48 10 The Affair 50 If You’re a Risk Taker, Moody, Sadistic 52 When I Was No Longer My Leather Jacket 54 Park 56 Deserted Rooms: Family Elephants, The Dark Shiny Bed Smaller than I Remember 61 Vacation 62 My Sister’s Diaries 64 The Other Fathers 65 August 24, That Other Summer I 66 Around the Table 68 The Old Dog 70 Bay of Love and Sorrow: Mother Poems My Mother Hated the Song of the Whales 75 Another September Letter 76 Solitaire 79 Asparagus 80 Locking the Screen Door 82 In the Middle Drawer 84 The Gold Dress 86 Blue Couch 88 Spoon Night, Crystal Night 90 Another Ratso Rizzo Dream 92 My Mother’s White Radio 93 My Mother and the Oranges 94 11 Wintergreen 96 My Mother’s Autograph Book 98 Washing Our Hair in Lake Champlain 99 Julys in the Rose Light Room 100 Awaiting Alma Alma Karmina 105 Alma, Her Eyes Shiny Coal 106 They Are On Their Way 108 Life Leaves Marks: Other Voices Another Woman Obsessed with Maps 111 The Woman in Love with Maps 112 One More Woman in Love with Old Maps 114 The Ice Maiden Mummy’s 78TH SOS 115 The Unabomber Dreams of the Ice Maiden Mummy, A Woman in a Flesh Dress Unlike Any Other 116 The Ice Maiden Mummy’s 234TH SOS 118 When I Bury My Face in the Crimson Velvet 119 A House Built on Water Behind Colonial Windows 123 Croton-on-Hudson 127 Mad Girls, Strangers, Women 12 with Wings and Without Wings Even Before the Pond Freezes Over 137 She Comes to the River When I Feed the Geese 140 For Months She Came at Night, a Strange Presence 142 The Dog Food Heiress 144 Barbie Remembers Another Life 146 The Mad Girl Remembers How the Record Stuck in Juarez 147 The Mad Girl Feels the Dark Spread Under the Surface 149 The Mad Girl Watches Deer Crossing 151 The Mad Girl Wades Thru January 152 The Mad Girl’s Pipes Burst and Split 153 The Mad Girl Thinks She Was in Another Life with the Geese 154 The Mad Girl Makes a Mantra of Something She’s Heard in a Most Unlikely Place 155 When the Mad Girl Feeds the Ducks and Geese Before It’s Light 156 On the Other Side of the Bridge: Poems of Place Midwest 161 Late November 162 In the One Space That Wasn’t Frozen 163 September Early 164 September, Early 165 Inline Skaters 166 The Seine from the Window, Notre Dame 167 13 Steepletop 168 On the Afternoon the Geese Come 169 After the Origami of Ice 170 Flame Birds Someone Says They Looked Like Cartwheeling Birds 173 Someone Goes Over Old Love Letter 174 After September 11 176 After September 11 177 September 24, 2001 178 October 18, 2001 179 In the One Tree of Singing Birds 180 October 30, 2001 181 14 This page intentionally left blank. 15 Persephone 16 This page intentionally left blank. ...