from the collection by Alan Walowitz, published May 2019
ISBN (paperback) 978-1-925536-76-8
ISBN (eBook) 978-1-925536-77-5
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When I was a kid our milkman was killed
right before dawn at a railroad crossing
one low whistle away from where we lived.
~ from The Story of the Milkman
I have heard you promise, the wretched week will fade to the past
but only until I hear the footsteps in the distance
~ from Lekah Dodi (Come, My Beloved)
They have no internet; they don’ t know what a sex toy is,
comes the solemn report from Jakarta, . . .
~ from Fallen Angel
I’ll take up with the breeze
and throw my hands in the air.
Not the madman next door . . .
~ from A Kind Breeze
Buff and bored, the long Latino Stanley Kowalski of the “F”
leans back in the hard seat as if he’s in a hammock,
his legs stretched halfway across the car
~ from Brooklyn Bound
When the sun came up next,
the volunteers had all gone home
and the way the light bounced off the smolder and char
made it look lonely and lovely and ours—
~ from Sunrise Fire
but it’s where Robert Moses bulldozed his way
right through people’s kitchens
to create the promised land, mobile eff-ing America;
~ from Tremont
Once, someone leaves the line
with a shrug that says, Fuck it , and the rest shake their heads
in awe at the homesick G.I. gone mad
~ from Waiting for Flowers
Roadkill on road ahead, she sings,
and there you are, looking for the corpse, . . .
~ from Roadkill
A shapely lady in heels,
tucks her legs modestly under,
but still enough akimbo to evoke faint possibility.
~ from 1938 Philco 4XX
But you’ve seen so many who are less
get to round the bases,
their arms making soaring motions
~ from The Infield Fly Rule
and they bring the big green truck
to clean up most everything—
fire, flood, petroleum spills—
but not this botched goodbye, . . .
~ from Endings Set Us Free
This is a great land with so many choices
of who to believe and why, and infinite possibilities of what to buy,
~ from “Lordy, I Hope There are Tapes”
It felt faraway this damage I inflicted
till the morning Clifford Glover, age 10, was shot by a cop
~ from Guys like us
They’re black and brown and grey and young
and the doctor—who hurries by from time to time
gives me a look that signifies, I know, I know, it’s crazy —
~ from Don’t Get Sick in America
But you know dreams; you can’t remember
what they were by the time you wake—
~ from No Heat
You’d be surprised
who’ll watch a guy muck about in quicksand
when he hardly gives a shit at all.
~ from The Sequel
My wife says J’accuse partly in jest.
She means: You get lost on the golf course —
or was it a woman?
~ from The Golf Poem
The rages of recent days settle upon us,
grow into practical comforts:
those we’d trusted to allay the silence are silent;
~ from Hailstorm
This is not exactly what you’d hoped
starting out, and certainly not here in Staten Island,
the cheap malls where no one ever goes
~ from Night Drive with My Daughter
Oh, meta God of Metta,
I paid my fifteen bucks,
to spend this tremulous hour,
in the vicinity of your presence—
~ from Metta Prayer
Them, staring out from between the slats and barbed wire,
of a train bound to nowhere.
~ from Some Day
The year my father turned 68
he began to cross at corners,
wait for the light, even
~ from My Father Stops at Corners
We could never figure out how long
Grandma had been lying on the floor.
~ from Für Die Kinder
Then from his pocket he takes a Bic—
and lights an oak leaf, then a maple, then another still
~ from Raking
You got to take the mail and get it right in the box;
Aloysius, this ain’t horseshoes . . .
~ from Button Trends–Summer, 1959
Till we looked at the glacier
that had formed in the freezer:
Interred there like a twelfth century mountaineer
~ from Downsizing
My mother kept books her whole life—
in her head and with a careful hand—
~ from The Cost of Bread
Second thoughts sometimes detract
from who you figured you might be
~ from Offerings for the Dead
when I was a kid, I was sure
I killed a bunch of strangers in a car, quite by accident,
~ from My History in Valhalla
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