1. Opening, from The Burden of Nisan
The poem carried her
through time
she lay reading on the balcony
on a sun-wombed border
a chrysanthemum ignited
the garden’s actuality
a well of gravity
birdsong harpooned the air
even her mother was caught
in the window
she turned to look and was trapped
by the ghosts of slender
cypresses
Her name rippled
her lips
halfway bent to her daughter
through
the rifted reality
no syllable passed
How far gone the shining glass
how far gone inflamed enamel
and her daughter on the …
