Things My Father Knew in Winter
He says, it was near midnight, a cargo run/on second shift--from Indy to some hamlet flung
Return to Boomtowns
"This is your Gary, where hands grab at homecoming:/brown soldiers, sizzling streets, airwaves thick from a Motor City."
Con Amor Por Southwest Detroit
Volver, Volver//These spaces still hold your treasures,these pieces y cosas/that I can no longer hold in my hand
Edith Farnsworth’s House
"Each season she arrived, / steering her car through uncut grasses / against the wishes / of the imposing architect"
Crossing in Miller (1889)
"a man stands, balancing, // one foot on one line and the other on another, touching the pulse / of two emergent powers"
2014
"Yes, I have been here before / On the threshold of justice’s door / Half a century ago / In Selma, Oxford, / And Birmingham." [From "The St. Louis Anthology"]
Cleaving
"I unfold my maps and trace my finger / across searching for the most authentic-looking / ruins."
Elegy for Bridge 9340
"Steel trusses & gusset plates gave way:/Splintered concrete bones, somersaults//Of beams"
Still Life, Ohio Valley
"In early morning the tributaries / at Pittsburgh meld, then flow on / for centuries"
Opèksipu Catches Sun Before it Flows Beneath the Washington Street Bridge
"home is built upon the scaffolding / of a hundred thousand stories..."
Today I Laid a Crayfish at Your Grave
"I kneeled at the stump where we laid the Ford agate,/Made up spells and secrets..."
About Leaving (Milwaukee)
An original poem from "The Milwaukee Anthology."