Philip Booth

Lie back daughter, let your head
be tipped back in the cup of my hand.
Gently, and I will hold you. Spread
your arms wide, lie out on the stream
...

Beside you,
Lying down at dark,
My waking fits your sleep.
...

As long as you
know you don't know,
not knowing's not
what hurts,
...

STOP    LOOK    LISTEN
 as gate stripes swing down
  count the cars hauling distance
    upgrade through town:
...

Like a woman
I loved, I say
words to the dark,
not to suffer.
...

Not that he promised not to windowshop,
or refuse free samples; but he gave up
exploring warehouse bargains, and forgot
the trial offers he used to mail away for.
...

Homing, inshore, from far off-soundings.
Night coming on. Sails barely full.
The wind,
in its dying, too light to lift us against
...

That you are moving so far
will not, as you say,
tear me apart; it is having
...

After the rebuilding was done, and
the wood stove finally installed, after
the ripping out of walls, tearing back to
its beams the house he'd lived in, frozen, for over
...

Still weeks to ice-out
in upcountry lakes. Here
on the coast, salt-ice
...

Sunday, late. The winter dark already coming down.
Inside the woodshed door, an early FM tuned to Bangor.
Half as old as the backyard oak he's felled—felled,
fitted, split—an old man mad for music lugs the chunks in.
...

Some plainly hot.

Lala, a Pakistani long in Grand Forks,
much given to early American sea-chests, takes
...

Forget roadside crossings.
Go nowhere with guns.
Go elsewhere your own way,
...