The whole city

The cold was so God damnedBitter there was nothing.Nothing. I was in troubleWith a woman, and there was nothingThere but me and dead snow.I stood on the street cornerIn Minneapolis, lashedThis way and that.Wind rose from some pit,Hunting me.Another bus to Saint PaulWould arrive in three hours,If I was lucky.Then the young SiouxLoomed beside me,…

He worked too hard to read books.He never heard how Sherwood AndersonGot out of it, and fled to Chicago, furious to free himselfFrom his hatred of factories.My father toiled fifty yearsAt Hazel-Atlas Glass,Caught among girders that smash the kneecapsOf dumb honyaks.Did he shudder with hatred in the cold shadow of grease?Maybe. But my brother and…

I wonder how many old men last winterHungry and frightened by namelessness prowledThe Mississippi shoreLashed blind by the wind, dreamingOf suicide in the river.The police remove their cadavers by daybreakAnd turn them in somewhere.Where?How does the city keep lists of its fathersWho have no names?By Nicollet Island I gaze down at the dark waterSo beautifully…

I do not want to disturb the antsWho are walking single file up the fence post,Carrying small white petals,Casting shadows so frail that I can see through them.I close my eyes for a moment and listen.The old grasshoppersAre tired, they leap heavily now,Their thighs are burdened.I want to hear them, they have clear sounds to…

Be still.Now.There they are, the moon’s young, tryingTheir wings.Between trees, a slender woman lifts up the lovely shadowOf her face, and now she steps into the air, now she is goneWholly, into the air.I stand alone by an elder tree, I do not dare breatheOr move.I listen.The wheat leans back toward its own darkness,And I…

I know and care for,And every bodyElse is goingTo die in a lonelinessI can’t imagine and a painI don’t know. We hadTo go on living. WeUntangled the net, we slitThe body of this fishOpen from the hinge of the tailTo a place beneath the chinI wish I could sing of.I would just as soon we…