Images---Art and Literature

 Six poems The Diary of a Lost Girl Four diphtheria deaths, then fire, now five named lakes with tranquil looks. Yet rampantly mad. A lunatic shriek from a ruffian child. One oar wrestled a mob of shore fringe, another, the wet underbirth. And madness, was it afflicted by daemons? Or stricken of god? Or vision, thrown on an empty mirror, and there you were? Later, upstairs — the lakes packed away in pearly cases, the coppery spin of a high skyward arrayed against a leaded window — the chiasmic question recurred. She recalled shy little lessons from a girl named Renee on the unattainable freedoms of the flesh. In the dining room, they would crumple over the table like paper angels if anyone raised an eyebrow. Otherwise, they leaned against scenery — looking down at their Bonniedale shoes as if they were in love with nothing else. The Penguin Chiaroscuro The acrobat on the rosinback circled the track thrice then threw her a kiss. She could see how well he’d been taught. He still prac...

  Landscape With the Fall of Icarus How could I have failed you like this? The narrator asks The object. The object is a box Of ashes. How could I not have saved you, A boy made of bone and blood. A boy Made of a mind. Of years. A hand And paint on canvas. A marble carving. How can I not reach where you are And pull you back. How can I be And you not. You’re forever on the platform Seeing the pattern of the train door closing. Then the silver streak of me leaving. What train was it? The number six. What day was it? Wednesday. We had both admired the miniature mosaics Stuck on the wall of the Met. That car should be forever sealed in amber. That dolorous day should be forever Embedded in amber. In garnet. In amber. In opal. In order To keep going on. And how can it be That this means nothing to anyone but me now.