My first poetry teacher talked of good poems as "tight snapping boxes." I fell into that easily (and with appreciation) being a lover of Wallace Stevens and James Wright. Now I'd like to come apart at the seams.

Three Sentences 1. Mercurial flash out the window, The hose, And the sedulous soil That draws me into variegation, But hesitant is my cold vigor Against The flesh of daylight. 2. I move into the pitch blue Ashen and blanched, My arms drop, I fold them and gaze to fit, In this scenery, in imagined scenery, in Everyplace of color, in late summer, in Steel rain where oscillating lines cover Water. . . windy bare snow Gardens enter my memory. 3. Here the face is difficult to control And drops Through the Dry, dried Reptiles, cats and shoes, After the thaw, in the Michigan Woods, coming up the road From. woods i know everyday you have to go into it no matter how you get you have to go into thin trees, Queen Anne's lace and water snakes. the light dry steps in the heat, the worms & fungus. . . tornado the sky designed itself and chose to be naked. awe burst the buttons off my dress. tornado rips neon tomato from vine to air. take this child to be your child. ( what will be ruined?) point i is a serpent laying eggs, fearing trucks on dirt roads. silhouette body's curves cool and persistent flow through The Great Animals and are torn at the edge. affection moves toward the image: a distinct kiss and a swallow. the wooden man comes up the roadin the Michigan evening as i lay thinking of sleeping grey of winter lakes in my bedside glass.