I’ve been turning in the gloom for years
Making vows, Lord, hoping apples,
Skies late winter will turn to spring,
Just enough Rachmaninoff,
Maybe we can really go back home…
I sat in the Cafe Strindberg
December frost on a window
Coffee steaming
Pencils before me—
What might poems be for?
Even then I was half milk
Half iodine, optimistic
And very sad,
The songs on high
Were so cold
Each silent word
Like a spoon in snow.
I learned my work like everyone,
