Cleaning Jim Dine’s Heart (excerpt)
In the afternoon sunlight at DeCordova sculpture park
she is on the top rung of a pair of steps cleaning a big
dark heart. And it has everything in it, this heart. Twice.
Even the coffee pot I brought back in hand luggage
that time, when such a thing was exotic, exciting,
more or less unknown. The coffee pot that blew up, in the end,
leaving its mark on the ceiling of Oakmead Road. That one.
Freight (excerpt)
I am the ship in which you sail,
little dancing bones,
your passage between the dream
and the waking dream,
your sieve, your pea-green boat.
I’ll pay whatever toll your ferry needs.
1847 (excerpt)
'What knots my belly now's
not hunger. Anger.
In Liverpool ships gob us up.
We rot, we scatter.
The Quays are maggoty with us.'
Raft of Desires (excerpt)
Warm wind on the night ferry
a glass and a dark song
a stroll and a dander
at a shining sea's edge, concluding
And its over, it's over
over the water and over,
the life I once knew
and the life I have left'.
Mind the Gap (excerpt)
At night your sleep is a race
down dimly lit passages where
the floor shines up at you,
the corridor never ends
Transit (excerpt)
Untidy life of faith and fear and the unfaith
stretch your sexy span across the city
an unforgiving breath from birth to bitter
for he’ll remember every slight and kindness
and know that we will likely someday mutter
- Maura Dooley
