I Hear America Singing
I loved a pricey device
for igniting a bomb,
free of purpose,
intent, more just
winging it, feathery
accessory, accessory, accessory.
Yes, they’re trendy.
Yes, they’re made
of gold. Unparalleled, they are
that too.
________________
leaves boatman boat steamboat sínging sits on bench
sínging song delicious or of young singing party songs
I, Too
Yeah, I know money
tucks away
the muzzle, money
swallows
the moan. I know—
I loved a loaded woman.
________________
company comes Say sée ashaméd America
Danse Russe
I already gave you
my supper
& the abortion
& my jiggle
of egg, milk & sweet.
________________
lonely was born to lonely admire flanks
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
I know that mansion
& I know
she laid out
in the sun. It was
an inelegant tow rope
I wore & I know
she derided me, a thousand
times she jeered.
________________
farmhousé To ask Of easy downy promisés
miles befóre miles befóre
The Day Lady Died
You’re only half
here, I submit.
Your cough, adorable
as a bullet, walking
like fending off
a bull. A bird
the accidental inmate
of a cardboard box.
I spun no feathers
around your neck.
________________
balance quandariness store and Avenue Theatre and
casually cartón cartón now whilé keyboard
The Road Not Taken
I pray to see
the possum
before it sees me. It prays
to see me
like this—buckled
and gasping for breath.
________________
for another ever come a sígh hence has made
The erasure-palimpsests that appear below each poem carry echoes of the original poems while also showing these two languages coexisting within the same lines, the same words. This is my own small way of trying to unbuild the wall between us and our neighbors to the south.
These poems retain the original titles of the source texts, poems by Walt Whitman, Langston Hughes, William Carlos Williams, Frank O’Hara and Robert Frost.