May Swenson Poems

Monday
The world is a ball of water.
See, it is round-sided.
I move across its topside,
...

“Feel me to do right,” our father said on his deathbed.
We did not quite know—in fact, not at all—what he meant.
...

I like being in your apartment, and not disturbing anything.
As in the woods I wouldn't want to move a tree,
...

What does love look like? We know
the shape of death. Death is a cloud
immense and awesome. At first a lid
...

The popcorn is greasy, and I forgot to bring a Kleenex.
A pill that’s a bomb inside the stomach of a man inside
...

Fruit without a stone, its shiny
pulp is clear green. Inside, tiny
black microdot seeds. Skin
...

1
A smudge for the horizon
that, on a clear day, shows
the hard edge of hills and
...

She sat on a shelf,
her breasts two bellies
on her poked-out belly,
on which the navel looked
...

When in the mask of night there shone that cut,
we were riddled. A probe reached down
and stroked some nerve in us,
...

I show her how to put her arms around me,
but she’s much too small.
What’s worse, she doesn’t understand.
...