In the old neighborhood -- The yellow house on the corner (1980) : I. This life -- The bird frau -- Robert Schumann, or : musical genius begins with affliction -- Happenstance -- Small town -- The Snow King -- Sightseeing -- Upon meeting Don L. Lee, in a dream -- "Teach us to number our days" -- Nigger song : an odyssey -- II. Five elephants -- Geometry -- Champagne -- Night watch -- The secret garden -- A suite for Augustus -- 1963 -- D.C.. -- Planning the perfect evening -- Augustus observes the sunset -- Wake -- Back -- III. Belinda's petition -- The house slave -- David Walker (1785-1830) -- The abduction -- The transport of slaves from Maryland to Mississippi -- Pamela -- Someone's blood -- Cholera -- The slave's critique of practical reason -- Kentucky, 1833 -- IV. Adolescence : I -- Adolescence : II -- Adolescence : III -- The boast -- The Kadava Kumbis devise a way to marry for love -- Spy -- First kiss -- Then came flowers -- Pearls -- Nexus -- V. Notes from a Tunisian journal -- The Sahara bus trip -- For Kazuko -- Beauty and the beast -- His shirt -- Great Uncle Beefheart -- The son -- Corduroy Road -- �O --
Museum (1983) : I. The hill has something to say -- The fish in the stone -- The ants of Argos -- Pithos -- Nestor's bathtub -- The hill has something to say -- The copper beech -- Tou Wan speaks to her husband, Liu Sheng -- Catherine of Alexandria -- Catherine of Siena -- Receiving the stigmata -- Boccaccio : the plague years -- Fiammetta breaks her peace -- II. In the bulrush -- November for beginners -- Reading H�olderlin on the patio with the aid of a dictionary -- Shakespeare say -- Three days of forest, a river, free -- Banneker -- In the bulrush -- Delft -- Ike -- Agosta the Winged Man and Rasha the Black Dove -- At the German writers conference in Munich -- III. My father's telescope -- Grape sherbet -- Roses -- Sunday night at grandfather's -- Centipede -- My father's telescope -- Song. Summer -- Anti-father -- To bed -- A father out walking on the lawn -- IV. Primer for the nuclear age -- The sailor in Africa -- Early morning on the Tel Aviv-Haifa Freeway -- Why I turned vegetarian -- Eastern European eclogues -- Flirtation -- Exeunt the viols -- The left-handed cellist -- Lines muttered in sleep -- Primer for the Nuclear Age -- Parsley -- Thomas and Beulah (1986) : I. Mandolin -- The event -- Variation on pain -- Jiving -- Straw hat -- Courtship -- Refrain -- Variation on guilt -- Nothing down -- The Zeppelin Factory -- Under the viaduct, 1932 -- Lightnin' blues -- Compendium -- Definition in the face of unnamed fury -- Aircraft -- Aurora Borealis -- Variation on gaining a son -- One volume missing -- The charm -- Gospel -- Roast possum -- The stroke -- The Satisfaction Coal Company -- Thomas at the wheel -- II. Canary in bloom -- Taking in wash -- Magic -- Courtship, diligence -- Promises -- Dusting -- A hill of beans -- Weathering out -- Motherhood -- Anniversary -- The house on Bishop Street -- Daystar -- Obedience -- The great palaces of Versailles -- Pomade -- Headdress -- Sunday greens -- Recovery -- Nightmare -- Wingfoot Lake -- Company -- The Oriental ballerina -- Chronology --
Grace notes (1989) -- Summit Beach -- I. Silos -- Fifth grade autobiography -- The buckeye -- Quaker oats -- Flash cards -- Crab-boil -- Hully gully -- Fantasy and science fiction -- Sisters -- Uncle Millet -- Poem in which I refuse contemplation -- II. Mississippi -- After storm -- Watching Last Year at Marienbad at Roger Haggerty's house in Auburn, Alabama -- Dog days, Jerusalem -- Ozone -- Turning thirty, I contemplate students bicycling home -- Particulars -- Your death -- The wake -- III. The other side of the house -- Pastoral -- Horse and tree -- The breathing, the endless news -- After reading Mickey in the Night Kitchen for the third time before bed -- Genetic expedition -- Backyard, 6 a.m. -- IV. Dedication -- Ars poetica -- Arrow -- Stitches -- In the museum -- And counting -- Dialectical romance -- Medusa -- In a neutral city -- V. Saints -- Genie's prayer under the kitchen sink -- The gorge -- Canary -- The island women of Paris -- �A l'Op�era -- Obbligato -- Lint -- The royal workshops -- On the road to Damascus -- Old folk's home, Jerusalem -- Mother love (1995) -- An intact world -- I. Heroes -- II. Primer -- Party dress for a first born -- Persephone, falling -- The search -- Protection -- The narcissus flower -- Persephone abducted -- Statistic : the witness -- Grief : the Council -- Mother love -- Breakfast of champions -- Golden oldie -- III. Persephone in hell - IV. Hades' pitch -- Wiederkehr -- Wiring home -- The Bistro Styx -- V. Blue days -- Nature's itinerary -- Sonnet in primary colors -- Demeter mourning -- Exit -- Afield -- Lost brilliance -- VI. Political -- Demeter, waiting -- Lamentations -- Teotlhuac�an -- History -- Used -- Rusks -- Missing -- Demeter's prayer to Hades -- VII. Her island -- On the bus with Rosa Parks (1999) : Cameos --July 1925 -- Night -- Birth -- Lake Erie skyline, 1930 -- Depression years -- Homework -- Graduation, grammar school -- Painting the town -- Easter Sunday, 1940 -- Nightwatch, the son -- Freedom : bird's eye view -- Singsong -- I cut my finger once on purpose -- Parlor -- The first book -- Maple Valley Branch Library, 1967 -- Freedom : birds' eye view -- Testimonial -- Dawn revisited -- Black on a Saturday night -- My mother enters the work force -- Black on a Saturday night -- The musician talks about "process" -- Sunday -- The camel comes to us from the barbarians -- The Venus of Willendorf -- Incarnation in Phoenix -- Revenant -- Best Western Motor Lodge, AAA Approved -- Revenant -- On Veronica -- There came a soul -- The peach orchard -- Against repose -- Against self-pity -- G�otterd�ammerung -- Ghost walk -- Lady Freedom among us -- For Sophie, who'll be in first grade in the year 2000 --
On the bus with Rosa Parks
"The situation is intolerable"
Claudette Colvin goes to work
QE2, transatlantic crossing, third day
In the lobby of the Warner Theatre, Washington, D.C.
The pond, porch-view : six p.m., early spring
"I have been a stranger in a strange land"
Two for the Montrose Drive-In
Meditation at fifty yards, moving target
Alfonzo prepares to go over the top
La Chapelle, 92nd Division, Ted
The return of Lieutenant James Reese Europe
Blues in half-tones, 3/4 time
Hattie McDaniel arrives at the Coconut Grove
Blues in half-tones, 3/4 time
Describe yourself in three words or less
The seven veils of Salom�e
Count to ten and we'll be there
Looking up from the page, I am reminded of this mortal coil.
