She’d had little patience with darkness, and her heartheld only a measure of shadow. I touchedthe warm dust of those colors, her tools,and left there with light on the tips of my fingers.

Valentine’s Day is the poet’s holiday.

When she left me I stood out in the thunderstorm, hoping to be destroyed by lightning. It missed, first left, then right.

a happy birthdaythis evening, I sat by an open windowand read till the light was gone and the bookwas no more than a part of the darkness.I could easily have switched on a lamp,but I...

Mother (fragment)…You asked me if I would be sad when it happenedand I am sad. But the iris I moved from your housenow hold in the dusty dry fists of their rootsgreen knives and forks...

MOTHER – By Ted KooserMid April already, and the wild plumsbloom at the roadside, a lacy whiteagainst the exuberant, jubilant greenof new grass and the dusty, fading black of burned-out ditches. No leaves, not yet,only...