Door in the Mountain: New and Collected Poems, 1965-2003

Kin

and sickens in jail; another comes to the end of his work; another threw himself out. Us too, our destinies get on, into middle age. Today we visited a field of graves— slaves’ or Indians’ graves, you said— sunk, unmarked, green edges of hammered granite sharp as a shoulder blade. God break me out of this stiff life I’ve made. Kin A woman’s face at the window, white, composed, tells me I do not love her; I did not love him; I do not love my children, so they wither, so she will take them, take them away. I cannot love him: he is dead. And she— she will not hurt us now. But the somber child; and the wind, and the white window. Anesthesia Right after her birth they crowded in, into the white room, huge tall masks of women’s faces ordinary things 105 ...