Full Moon in Winter
Bare branches rise
and fall overhead.
The barn door bangs loose,
persistent as remorse
after anger and shouting.
Dogs bark across the pond.
The shadow of the house
appears on the crusted snow
like the idea of a house,
and my own shadow
lies down in the cold
at my feet, lunatic,
like someone tired
of living in a body,
needy and full of desire . . . .
From Room to Room
Here in this house, among photographs
of your ancestors, their hymnbooks and old
shoes . . .
I move from room to room,
a little dazed, like the fly. I watch it
bump against each window.
I am clumsy here, thrusting
slabs of maple into the stove.
Out of my body for a while,
weightless in space . . .
Sometimes
the wind against the clapboard
sounds like a car driving up to the house.
My people are not here, my mother
and father, my brother. I talk
to the cats about weather.
"Blessed be the tie that binds . . ."
we sing in the church down the road.
And how does it go from there? The tie . . .
the tether, the hose carrying
oxygen to the astronaut,
turning, turning outside the hatch,
taking a look around.
