David Ignatow Poems

When I die choose a star
and name it after me
that you may know
I have not abandoned
...

I stopped to pick up the bagel
rolling away in the wind,
annoyed with myself
for having dropped it
...

I close my eyes like a good little boy at night in bed,
as I was told to do by my mother when she lived,
...

As I reach to close each book
lying open on my desk, it leaps up
to snap at my fingers. My legs
...

Whatever we do, whether we light
strangers’ cigarettes—it may turn out
to be a detective wanting to know who is free
...

I am looking for a past
I can rely on
in order to look to death
with equanimity.
...

This tree has two million and seventy-five thousand leaves.
Perhaps I missed a leaf or two but I do feel triumphant
...

You wept in your mother's arms
and I knew that from then on
I was to forget myself.
...

As I enter the theatre the play is going on.
I hear the father say to the son on stage,
You’ve taken the motor apart.
...

I am leaving earth with little knowledge of it,
without having visited its great cities and lands
I was here for a moment, it seems, to praise,
and now that I am leaving I am astounded
...