Gasped and sobbed - she was a person!

She was a woman! Alive - inside

Herself -

Writing -

And then I did not fear her -

Her detail or Grandeur -

But began to make my Way to Her Room

To Thank her.

Amherst Ballad 10

When I came to Emily’s - House - late -

I remembered the feel of my Rough - Porous -

Presence in my life - my Spirit

Accidental - Chancy-ish.

In my mother’s garden - I danced with Cabbage

Roses and peonies - Hollyhock -

And Snapdragons hid Faeries -

Like the sweet -

Agony - of the Wings - between

A girl’s legs. Though I did not think

Flight would be granted to me - or Eggs

Or Milk or the Knot of a Pen and Ink

Rosette one could make like a silk Coat’s Frog -

Then its Panels undo -

And slip off Satin Covering -

And - Be - one’s Soul.

3

Balladz

Best Friend Ballad

Sometimes I’ll suddenly remember the power

of her house, and of the approach to it,

down the narrow, extreme-curve-to-the-

right street, opening onto the

somehow delicate cul-de-sac, my

best friend’s

house—what?

Italianate? Ogive windows,

balconies, tile roof,

the land fallen off steep behind it to the

gradual slope to the Bay. And then

the flat stones up to her Doric

portico—between them, flowering

weeds, no ice plant, no ivy, just tiny

blossoms, then there it was, like a villa,

a little Berkeley palace, a doctor’s

elegant home of safety where she was

dying, 9 years old, and I didn’t

let myself realize it.

If her mother had been there, maybe I could have

asked her if I could take a nap

with my friend when she fell

asleep—but her mother

had died the day before, my job

was to not let my friend know it—

so she could die as if she had

a mother. What would I have given to

have been allowed to lie down

next to her dear skeletal body.

She still had her fine, yellow-green,

thick, sour-color hair,

as if the lead poison they’d breathed had

sharpened the chartreuse of it—

what would I have given to be

allowed to fall asleep with her

and dream, alive—what would I give

now? Nothing, I have nothing to give,

none of the luck which followed in my fortunate

life. But I pray for a sleep tonight in which,

9 and 9, we can hold each other in a

green dream.

Ballad of the Chair

When I stare at the word, and it begins to loosen

and come apart, I see it has

hair in it, and air in it, and

ai, and I. I think it was just

once, for a few hours—an after-

noon—my folks performed an arranged

marriage between their middle child

and a Hitchcock. It had no head, no arms, it had

a back and four legs, which could not walk—

like me, while I was espoused to it—