Poetry

All night
 I float
   in the shallow ponds
    while the moon wanders

burning,
 bone white,
   among the milky stems.

Afterwards
the cheerful birds
still woke me—bands
of crows blaring,

and the darling sparrows
chirping for their lives.
Somebody had died.

The three fates in dark
skirts and starched shirtwaists
bend over their work,

Thirty miles or so south of L. A.
stand two hangars, like two tombs
on the plain between
the freeway and the mountains,

On a clear day, the jealous
Are jealous of ash leaves,
Flies, all jewelry of air.