From The Birthday Letters

from The Rag Rug

Somebody had made one. You admired it.

So you began to make your rag rug.

You needed to do it. Played on by lightnings

You needed an earth. Maybe. Or needed

To pull something out of yourself-

Some tapeworm of the psyche. I was simply

Happy to watch your scissors being fearless...

Whenever you worked at your carpet I felt happy.

Then I could read Conrad's novels to you.

I could cradle your freed mind in my voice,

Chapter by chapter, sentence by sentence,

Word by word: "Heart of Darkness,"...

I dreamed of our house

Before we ever found it. A great snake

Lifted its head from a well in the middle of the house

Exactly where the well is, beneath its slab,

In the middle of the house.

A golden serpent, thick as a child's body,

Eased from the opened well. And poured out

Through the back door, a length that seemed unending-...