“Fragment (found inside my mother),” “God Forgotten,” “Bag of Mice,” and “Emptying Town” also appeared in American Poetry: The Next Generation, edited by Gerald Costanzo and Jim Daniels, published by Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2000.

Many friends and teachers have read all or parts of this book in manuscript form and contributed vital encouragements, inspiration, and comments. It wouldn’t exist without you—thanks go out daily.

Specific thanks to Rodney Phillips, Caroline Crumpacker, Paul Lentz, Rebecca Wolff, Robert Danburg, Julie Carr, Franc Graham, John Mattson, Ray Nolin, and Jacqueline Woodson—for being here, always. And to Fred Marchant—for deep understanding.

For material support and time: the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, the Millay Colony, the MacDowell Colony, the Djerassi Resident Artists Program, the PEN American Center, and, of course, everyone at Graywolf.

The memory of Jody Draper, Alice Draper, Richard Booton, and Ivan Wendell Hubbard infuses this book.

Finally, to Frances Richard—love that keeps opening.

Dedication

for Tad Flynn

I

The Visible Woman

It is joy to be hidden

but disaster not to be found.

—D.W. Winnicott

Bag of Mice

I dreamt your suicide note

was scrawled in pencil on a brown paperbag,

& in the bag were six baby mice. The bag

opened into darkness,

smoldering

from the top down. The mice,

huddled at the bottom, scurried the bag

across a shorn field. I stood over it

& as the burning reached each carbon letter

of what you’d written

your voice released into the night

like a song, & the mice

grew wilder.

Fragment (found inside my mother)

I kept it hidden, it was easy

to hide, behind my lingerie, a shoebox

above my boys’ reach, swaddled alongside

my painkillers

in their childproof orange cups. I knew my kids,

curious, monkeys,

but did they know me? It was easy

to hide, it waited, the hard O of its mouth

made of waiting, each bullet

& its soft hood of lead. Braced

solid against my thigh, I’d feed it

with my free hand, my robe open

as if nursing, practicing

my hour of lead, my letting go. The youngest

surprised me with a game,

held out his loose fists, begging

guess which hand, but both

were empty. Who taught him that?

The Captain Asks for a Show of Hands

Everyday, something—this time

a French ship with all her passengers & crew

slides into the North Sea, the water so cold

it finishes them. Nothing saved

but a life ring stenciled GRACE,

cut loose from its body. A spokesman can only

state his surprise

that it doesn’t happen more often.

Last August, as I rode the ferry

from here to the city, a freak storm

surprised everyone,

& the Captain, forced below,

asked for a show of hands

as to whether we should go on. A woman beside me

hid her entire head in her jacket

to light a cigarette.

For years I had a happy childhood,

if anyone asked I’d say, it was happy.

You Ask How