Reginald Shepherd Poems

and green plaid shorts goes strolling
through Juneau Park at eight o’clock
with only a hooded yellow windbreaker
for protection, trawling the bushes after work
...

At that time I didn't understand
snow, the absence inside July,
water and what holds the water
in. Heard "It takes more than a forest
...

for Chris


I'm a penny fallen from heaven's
...

For his sake drifting away from the true
windlessness, torn sails the aftermath
of him: white canvas suffering too vaguely
from the beautiful agreeing with these arguments,
...

In that year I was perfect
and in mourning

Blue glass tends to replace
...

Look: I am building absence
out of this room's air, I'm reading suppositions into
summer's script snarled on a varnished floor.
It looks like a man. That knot's his hand
...

See my colors fall apart? Green
to yellow with just one shade gone,
the changing tints of your sun-struck eyes,
if there were sun. Today the prism held to mine’s
...

What will I call you
when you are gone?
How will I know your name?
Little star, reflection
...

When I was ten (no, younger
than that), my mother tried
to kill herself (without the facts
there can't be faith). One death
...

And then I said, That's what it means
to testify: to sit in the locked dark muttering
when you should be dead to the world. The muse
just shrugged and shaded his blue eyes. So naturally
...