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Baffler Archives: Poems

Columns

Each Morning Again
As store windows are darkening and displays are taken down—that is when she walks home, tired. To take off her good shoes. To her husband. What to express about another such day? The given hand composes shopping lists. As if reminders were wanted, of the staples, every week ...

Fulcrum
1. Across the river her voice sends shreds torn from something gelid, all acute angles though the surface of each call is fur and dust. That last body a wraith of small bones leaning forward whether to blow her curses out or suck her souls back in, it’s hard to say. In ...

Spine Surgery
nerve-root                cord in the tunnel                              from mind to the far                extremities the flesh tendrils                how they transit & exit                              with more ...

How the Words Died
without heroism                /               guards falling asleep                /               a blood sky down a storm of falsehoods blowing in                /               thick gray vortices                /    ...

Blue Rondo à la Turk
This rhythm is to us what the blues is to you. The navel lint warming a cold index feels me.     As in the superfluous touch wagered for when, some days, we idle too easily     through life’s square, gray rooms exchanging, mostly in repose—your affirming head- nod. My ...

The Crystal Lithium
James Schuyler thought to call his book The Crystal Lithium when he was my age without knowing he was going to die, or knowing as much as he could because death was still far away—the way I know I’m going to die. I’m talking too much about my mother’s cancer, her ...