So many doors through which New England disappears. No safety here amid Bed & Breakfast Bibles pilfered from our drawers, Dante's Nineteenth Canto buried in a thrift shop behind the local church -- the feet of Blake's inverted man bursting to flames. Nothing else changes, only flowers rearranged near calendars hung on rusty nails, holy discarded by immaculate maids like tinder for the fire -- the town's off-season stillness akin to that lighthouse etched in stone above our twin beds. Used with the permission of Copper Canyon Press, P.O. Box 271, Port Townsend, WA 98368-0271, www.cc.press.org | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...IN A BURYING GROUND by SARA TEASDALE ONE LIFE by PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR MILK FOR THE CAT by HAROLD MONRO OUT FROM BEHIND THIS MASK by WALT WHITMAN THE VANISHERS by JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER THE VIGIL OF JOSEPH by ELSA BARKER TWELVE SONNETS: 7. PERFECT UNION by GEORGE BARLOW (1847-1913) |