dreamed that i was president
of these united states
dreamed i replaced ignorance
stupidity and hate


Anne Truitt, Untitled, 1986

Goods
-- by Wendell Berry

It's the immemorial feelings
I like the best: hunger, thirst,
their satisfaction; work-weariness,
earned rest; the falling again
from loneliness to love;
the green growth the mind takes
from the pastures in March;
the gayety in the stride
of a good team of Belgian mares
that seems to shudder from me
through all my ancestry.


Waiting for You
-- by Dean Smith

Gritty red brick row house
outskirts of Baltimore
circa the second coming,
I'll look through the stained glass between us
while my victrola scratches "Exile on Main Street."

Saturday morning around my way
children tear down the alley,
a lewd cacophony smeared
with a mix of dirt, ice cream.
Mamas spend the day in curlers
watching Bowling for Dollars.

Obsolete papas scrape mustard
from their backfins, over cases
of National Bohemian.

Working the night shift on a loading dock
with a forklift full of broken hearts,
space on my arm for a flamingo tatoo,
I'll wait until you grace these marble steps.


Reverence
--by Sarah Manguso

Love not the rider but the old rider,
the ghost in the saddle: Obey that ghost.
A good horse runs even at the shadow of the whip.
But we are not good horses.
We bolt. We stand still in bad weather.
We rely on things we know are unreliable,
it feels so good just to rely.
We are relied on.
But I do not know who knows that bad secret.
I do not see who sits astride by back,
who cuts my flank so lovingly on our way to the dark mountain.