May some beautiful evening in the future find you

sipping wine with your beloved
in a peaceful foreign country

while the lake moves full of shredded moon
and tiny candle-lit fish,

and the sound of a violin
played expertly in another room

and my death, if it has come, not troubling you a bit.

--excerpt from "Happy Meal"

A voice says, Yes, Officer, I know
why it is I've been pulled over,

while you write it down,
as I always knew you would.
This gentle reckoning,
all my life,

I was driving toward it as fast as I could.

--excerpt from "Speeding Ticket"

Is this what maturity is?—the sense

of having been
detained at the station
long after I've already boarded the train?

My image
in the mirror
is invisible,

a breath stitched
to a silk slip
in a moment of aloneness. 

--excerpt from "Fortieth Birthday"

JANUARY

The howling pretends to bring on winter,

but the howling was there all along.

In the miniature roses, in the tiny bees,

in the glittering bits of whatever that was
we called the wind when it was spring:

(Oh, remember, Sweetheart, we called it breeze.)