August Kleinzahler

Who would have credited their late August collapse? They flourish like jumpweed over these punishing summers, or did do, adversaries going faint here alongside the river. Eighteen-wheelers bust across the interstates, devouring horizon, tuned to the one same station, signal fluttering as this distressing tale unfolds, inning by inning, game by game.

Do you suppose, in the beginning, there was...

I The room darkens, then darkens further with the approach of yet another storm cell from the west with its columns and plaits, the tall, ghostly chambers of space between –une fraction intense du météore pur … willow, sage, Sung green, a hint, perhaps, of veronese; now darkening further still until sufficiently dark, as if at the beginning of a show, and with the...

I

The tank column moves east in the snow. You cannot hear them at this remove, High above and at an oblique angle: The ‘bird’s-eye view’, much favoured by mapmakers. There are no birds, long gone to the south. The sky is empty and will remain so for months, Excepting attack planes and bombers, Nowhere in evidence this evening. Nothing aloft In this weather. The tanks...