Lisel Mueller

For Linda Foster

Because we used to have leavesand on damp daysour muscles feel a tug,painful now, from when rootspulled us into the groundand because our children believethey can fly, an instinct retainedfrom when the bones in our armswere shaped like zithers and brokeneatly under their feathersand because before we had lungswe knew how far it was to…

1.

2.Because there must be a reasonwhy I should cast a shadow.. . .10.Created functionless, for the sheer playof the mind in its tens of thousands of moves.

I. Insomnia

If it were a white rose it would tire of bloomingthrough another endless night.The moon knows the routine;it beats the bushes from east to westand sets empty-handed. Again the oneshe is waiting for has outrun the moon.II. Old MoneyThe spotted hands shake as they polish the coins.The shiny penny goes under the tongue,the two silver…

This is not fantasy, this is our life.

who have invaded the moon,who cannot stop their computers.We are the gods who can unmakethe world in seven days.Both hands are stopped at noon.We are beginning to live forever,in lightweight, aluminum bodieswith numbers stamped on our backs.We dial our words like Muzak.We hear each other through water.The genre is dead. Invent something new.Invent a man…

In Sleeping Beauty’s castle

and the girl in the tower returns to the world.So do the servants in the kitchen,who don’t even rub their eyes.The cook’s right hand, liftedan exact century ago,completes its downward arcto the kitchen boy’s left ear;the boy’s tensed vocal cordsfinally let gothe trapped, enduring whimper,and the fly, arrested mid-plungeabove the strawberry piefulfills its abiding missionand…

Sometimes, when the light strikes at odd angles

and you are passing a crumbling mansioncompletely hidden behind old willowsor an empty convent guarded by hemlocksand giant firs standing hip to hip,you know again that behind that wall,under the uncut hair of the willowssomething secret is going on,so marvelous and dangerousthat if you crawled through and saw,you would die, or be happy forever.