Heather McHugh Poems

We dress the boy in an orange cap
and show him how the gun is held.
He looks at his hand.

He likes five women, one in black
...

Lined up behind the space bartender
is the meaning of it all, the vessels
marked with letters, numbers,
signs. Beyond the flats
...

He claps a hand
Across the gaping hole—

Or else the sight might
Well inside to
...

In sympathy with Gaspara Stampa

By woman so touched, so pressed,
detachment being thought
achievable at all
...

I owe you an explanation.
My first memory isn’t your own
of an empty box. My babyhood cabinets held
a countlessness of cakes, my backyard
...

Stuck on the fridge, our favorite pin-up girl
is anorexic. On the radio we have a riff

of Muzak sax, and on the mind
a self-help book. We sprawl all evening, all
...

We dress the boy in an orange cap
and show him how the gun is held.
He looks at his hand.

He likes five women, one in black
and one in yellow, whitey,
pinky, and the naked one.

In all his stories he loses his heart.
We do not tell him that the truth
is just the future, that he's born

to die, and the love of the lovely
can kill. But we believe it;
he is beautiful, and at the movies

he is what we watch. His eyes
are fixed, his hair still
smoking; his whole face is blue.
...

Fifty years the butcher shop
has hung these animals on hooks
to cure. The stationery store
dispenses the same old news,
same change, a little less silver;
ladies in a beauty shop desire
the perfect permanent.
Mornings this bright
cast the deepest shade;
everything seems to come
from memory. The subway's elevated.

Down the block toward the river Bronx
each yard has a chain-link fence, a dog
attracted to the random noise.
The woman no one knows is dead is still
in the chair by the bedroom plant.
Stripes advance from the blind
to her lap, slower than the human
eye can see. Above the accidents
of traffic you can hear
her clock and clean refrigerator hum.
...

Lined up behind the space bartender
is the meaning of it all, the vessels
marked with letters, numbers,
signs. Beyond the flats

the monitor looms, for all the world
like the world. Images and
motions, weeping women,
men in hats. I have killed

many happy hours here,
with my bare hands,
where TV passes for IV, among
the space cadets and dingbats.
...

ON THE BIRTH OF A SON

When a child is born, the parents say
they hope it's healthy and intelligent. But as for me—

well, vigor and intelligence have wrecked my life. I pray
this baby we are seeing walloped, wiped and winningly anointed,

turns out dumb as oakum—and more sinister. That way
he can crown a tranquil life by being

appointed a cabinet minister.
...