Robert VanderMolen

A House

A calendar under the couch Was several years old. It wasn’t My house. A note with crisp Letters, You are the loveOf my life. I drank my coffee On a window seat watching Spring snow fall like sugar-cubes

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Men were mulling The career of Senator Vandenberg

Candles played across mirrors To a repeating pause In the wallpaper

A polite house Like my aunt’s we visited At Easter,...

Waiting for Someone

On the bulkhead over the bar Names of steamers that used to stop here

The river silted with new islands and old tyres

I’ve been postponing this drink for hours She says, though I hadn’t inquired

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Across the alley where the train station Once held court, exposed brick, hardwood floors

Where I stood at the entrance, five years old, My hand in my mother’s,...

Fishing at the Falls

Beer is cold in the water A breeze is cold behind us, A draught from shadow, where it Is cavelike, the wall eaten under, A moody huddling, where rock Has fallen from the upper lip Like crumbs (we imagine) Until rock meets rock At the rubble of river

How we’ve turned to fiction, Says Dick – all this hunger, Pitchy with wonder, came full Circle in a way . . .

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Sand

Water muscling to shore at twilight, Muscling over her ribs, the water so warm For September. Thomas Paine said, We just couldn’t stay boys (regarding the colonists) Or something to that effect. Ladybugs gather, covering a pear, Gulls screech about the deserted lighthouse. How agreeable to discover Someone loves you, or even later, That you’ve become a fixture In...

Toucans

Meanwhile in Costa Rica the volcano smokes Toucans glide down to the banana plantation – For the moment everything is relaxed. It is snowing in Michigan, but I’m thinking Of the newspaper story in September, Two parrots building a nest on a silo In Montcalm County – Guido points out Alulu shadings above the coverts, Assuming I’m a birder. I like their beaks....