Last night we ended up on the couch
trying to remember
all of the friends who had died so far,

and this morning I wrote them down
in alphabetical order
on the flip side of a shopping list
you had left on the kitchen table.

So many of them had been swept away
as if by a hand from the sky,
it was good to recall them,
I was thinking
under the cold lights of a supermarket
as I guided a cart with a wobbly wheel
up and down the long strident aisles.

I was on the lookout for blueberries,
English muffins, linguini, heavy cream,
light bulbs, apples, Canadian bacon,
and whatever else was on the list,
which I managed to keep grocery side up,

until I had passed through the electric doors,
where I stopped to realize,
as I turned the list over,
that I had forgotten Terry O’Shea
as well as the bananas and the bread.

It was pouring by then,
spilling, as they say in Ireland,
people splashing across the lot to their cars.
And that is when I set out,
walking slowly and precisely,
a soaking-wet man
bearing bags of groceries,
walking as if in a procession honoring the dead.

I felt I owed this to Terry,
who was such a strong painter,
for almost forgetting him
and to all the others who had formed
a circle around him on the screen in my head.

I was walking more slowly now
in the presence of the compassion
the dead were extending to a comrade,

plus I was in no hurry to return
to the kitchen, where I would have to tell you
all about Terry and the bananas and the bread.

Billy Collins

Thinking of how much my father loved flowering plants
And how much my mother still does.

And of how unfathomably hard it must have been
To clothe and feed ten children

With the most meagre of salaries for tending to citrus orchards—
For shovelling and irrigating and shovelling again.

How he groaned when I removed his work boots
At day’s end, an exhaustion deeper than any well.

Mom says his boss was a jerk, nothing ever good enough.
On top of everything, that empathy of her for him

Who’d never listened to her pleas because the priest said
All the children God will allow, the priest

Who never saw her afternoons slumped by the kitchen table,
A blank stare into somewhere

My voice could never reach.
Nothing to do but walk away. I swear

This is not about the unwanted child,
Or what a therapist called embodiment of the violation,

But about the strength and will to cradle the plants
Outside—the pruning, the watering, the sheltering

In found tarps and twine against the coldest nights.
To lean into the day’s hard edge,

And still find that reserve of tenderness
For the bougainvillea, the hibiscus, the blue morning.

José Antonio Rodgríguez

She brings us water, not intending harm,
And now a drier throat cannot confess
My praises for the motions of this waitress
And for the oneness of her uniform.
I know already that I lack the charm
For that; with her, there’s nothing counts for less
Than thoughts which fall as readily as a dress
And yet as finally as a severed arm.
The truckers at the other table try
A CB raunchy line to make her stay,
But I can only smile and order pie
To slow her in the cession of her tray,
Until I’ve tasted all that I could say
And swinging doors have swallowed our goodbye.

Anthony Lombardy

i drank a lot. i lost my job.
i lived like nothing mattered.
then you stopped, and came across
my little bridge of fallen answers.

i don’t recall what happened next.
i kept you at a distance.
but tangled in the knot of sex
my punishment was lifted.

and lifted on a single breath—
no coming and no going—
o G-d, you are the only friend
i never thought of knowing.

your remedies beneath my hand
your fingers in my hair
the kisses on our lips began
that ended everywhere.

and now our sins are all confessed
our strategies forgiven
it’s written that the law must rest
before the law is written.

and not because of what i’d lost
and not for what i’d mastered
you stopped for me, and came across
the bridge of fallen answers.

tho’ mercy has no point of view
and no one’s here to suffer
we cry aloud, as humans do:
we cry to one another.

And now it’s one, and now it’s two, A
nd now the whole disaster.
We cry for help, as humans do—
Before the truth, and after.

And Every Guiding Light Was Gone
And Every Teacher Lying—
There Was No Truth In Moving On—
There Was No Truth In Dying.

And Then The Night Commanded Me
To Enter In Her Side—
And Be As Adam Was To Eve
Before The Great Divide.

her remedies beneath my hand
her fingers in my hair—
and every mouth of hunger glad—
and deeply unaware.

and here i cannot lift a hand
to trace the lines of beauty,
but lines are traced, and beauty’s glad
to come and go so freely.

and from the wall a grazing wind,
weightless and routine—
it wounds us as i part your lips
it wounds us in between.

and every guiding light was gone
and every sweet direction—
the book of love i read was wrong
it had a happy ending.

And Now There Is No Point Of View—
And Now There Is No Other—
We Spread And Drown As Lilies Do—
We Spread And Drown Forever.

You are my tongue, you are my eye,
My coming and my going.
O G-d, you let your sailor die
So he could be the ocean.

And when I’m at my hungriest
She takes away my tongue
And holds me here where hungers rest
Before the world is born.

And fastened here we cannot move
We cannot move forever
We spread and drown as lilies do—
From nowhere to the center.

Escaping through a secret gate
I made it to the border
And call it luck—or call it fate—
I left my house in order.

And now there is no point of view—
And now there is no other—
We spread and drown as lilies do—
We spread and drown forever.

Disguised as one who lived in peace
I made it to the border
Though every atom of my heart
Was burning with desire.

Leonard Cohen

What would a grown woman do?
She’d tug off an earring
when the phone rang, drop it to the desk

for the clatter and roll. You’d hear
in this the ice, tangling in the glass;
in her voice, low on the line, the drink

being poured. All night awake,
I heard its fruity murmur of disease
and cure. I heard the sweet word “sleep,”

which made me thirstier. Did I say it,
or did you? And will I learn
to wave the drink with a goodbye wrist

in conversation, toss it off all bracelet-bare
like more small talk about a small affair?
To begin, I’ll claim what I want

is small: the childish hand
of a dream to smooth me over,
a cold sip of water in bed,

your one kiss, never again.
I’ll claim I was a girl before this gin,
then beg you for another.

Deborah Garrison

First I was born and it was tough on Mom.
Dad felt left out. There’s much I can’t recall.
I seethed my way to speech and said a lot
of things: some were deemed cute. I was so small
my likely chance was growth, and so I grew.
Long days in school I filled, like a spring creek,
with boredom. Sex I discovered soon
enough, I now think. Sweet misery!

There’s not enough room in a poem so curt
to get me out of adolescence, yet
I’m nearing fifty with a limp, and dread
the way the dead get tacked up like a cord
of wood. Not much of a story, is it?
The life that matter’s not the one I’ve led.

William Matthews

To a Favorite Granddaughter

Never love a simple lad;
Guard against the wise;
Shun a timid youth, and sad;
Hide from haunted eyes.

Never hold your heart in pain
For an evil-doer;
Never flip it down the lane
To a gifted wooer.

Never love a loving son;
Nor a sheep astray;
Gather up your skirts and run
From a wistful way.

Never give away a tear;
Never toss and pine…
Should you heed my words, my dear,
You’re no blood of mine!

Healed

Oh, when I threw my heart away
The year was at its fall.
I saw my dear, the other day,
Beside a flowering wall.
And this was all I had to say:
“I thought that he was tall!”

Superfluous Advice

Should they whisper false of you,
Never trouble to deny;
Should the words they speak be true,
Weep and storm and swear they lie.

Afternoon

When I am old and comforted
And done with this desire,
With Memory to share my bed,
And Peace to share my fire.

I’ll fold my hair in scalloped bands
Beneath my laundered cap;
And watch my cool and fragile hands
Lie light upon my lap.

And I will wear a spriggéd gown
With lace to kiss my throat.
I’ll draw my curtains to the town, A
nd him a purring note.

And I’ll forget the way of tears,
And rock, and stir my tea.
But oh, I wish those blesséd years
Were further than they be!

Swan Song

First you are hot,
Then you are cold;
And the best you have got
Is the fact you’re old.
Labor and hoard,
Worry and wed;
And the biggest reward
Is to die in bed.
A long time to sweat,
A little while to shiver
Is all you will get—
Where’s the nearest river?

Dorothy Parker

People cannot
Learn in schools
The truth about
The traffic rules,

Or gauge the temper
Of a cop
And when to steal
A light, or stop,

Or swiftly shift
From gear to gear
To save collision
In the rear.

My chassis was
Designed for speed,
My engine does
Its stuff at need,

My brakes are new
And working fine,
I could skid close
To the danger line,

But with safe margins
I’m content—
I hate to get
My mudguard bent!

Angela Cypher

I sleep, thou sleepest
It sleeps—
A dream that nobody
Keeps.

We wake, you wake
They wake;
A desperate
Mistake.

A dream is pure
And mural,
While living life
Is plural,

And three or four—
Dimensional,
With number and tense
Declensional.

So then I try
To live
In the
Infinitive,

To love, to learn
To die.
No heroine
Am I,

But the subjunctive
Mood
Still offers something
Good—

So, might I, if I,
Should I
By chance, perhaps,
And could I,

Dispense with “if”
And “maybe”—
I’d have a black-eyed
Baby.

Angela Cypher

Reminiscent

When I consider how my life is spent,
I hardly ever repent.

On Ice-Breaking

Candy
Is dandy
But liquor
Is quicker.

Veracious

Purity
Is obscurity.

Helpful

A good way to forget today’s sorrows
Is by thinking hard about tomorrow’s.

Ogden Nash