Sandra McPherson: Landscape Painter, Salmon Creek, July 1991
Doesn’t everyone
covet an easel? — its smart little body
named after onagers and donkeys, ancestor
of art kept trim.
Sandra McPherson: Numbers 31
(in which Moses orders the rape
of 32,000 Midianite virgins)
Sandra McPherson: Richard Milhous
He was ill-favored and uncraved and yet had we known
his secret life we would have perceived his lyingas a form of gentleness…
Sandra McPherson: On the Abundance of Shell Hinges after a Storm
How have these ligaments
held, for their umbones, each life’s intention
of never letting go?
Sandra McPherson: Going to See Dr. Jones Out of Loneliness, 1966
You have to get ready
for a more complicated life.
You have to tell him the simple things
don’t know how to put their round heads together.
Sandra McPherson: Far Away in Time, the Senses Return to Me as I Identify with That Tree
The way the lightning-split
willow was tugged,
wandy and half still alive,
It refused to uncork.
Sandra McPherson: Drunkard’s Path
From the table I selected a Big Book:
“The more hopeless he feels, the better.”
Sandra McPherson: For a Buried Doll’s Head, Manufactured 1890s
Be careful, said the bottle miner,
Don’t let the dirt out —
It holds her eyes in place.
Sandra McPherson: The Delicacy
for M.H. Friend, remember how you showed us beasts love beauty?We were wading in your lake with bluegills and you said,Be careful, you will lose your beauty marks . To … Continue reading
Sandra McPherson: For Elizabeth Bishop
The child I left your class to have Later had a habit of sleeping With her arms around a globeShe’d unscrewed, dropped, and dented.I always felt she could possess it, The pink countries and the … Continue reading
Sandra McPherson: Birth Mother,
19, sunsuit. The shadow . of the Nehi covers her . navel. The orange . in black and white flavors the throat . down to the amnion. Father’s grape . … Continue reading
