I.
The rain fell hard a moment

but it left the washing dry.

How happily! The rain came down and left

the washing dry—now anything may



      II.
Happiness of the house’s

clutter and the wish to be

changed, changed utterly. There’s

nothing much in the way

of fruit in season—a few

apples, fairly pale. A hot

wind in the middle of September

startles the lettuces to seed

—“the chance of poetry.” Grace

grows five kinds of Chilean chilli

and one Thai



      III.
No big milk crate strapped

to the back of my bike—just

a little basket, and a net

to keep things in it. And if

required

I’ll carry half of what I need

on my person—such as this

grief, or a nice phrase










Attributions: “the chance of poetry” is from a 1966 letter of George Oppen’s. In The Selected Letters of George Oppen, ed.

Rachel Blau DuPlessis, p. 138: “I am trying to be as accurate as I can, as correct as I can, in the matter of where the chance

of poetry lies, but it is true that I tend to think first of what will lead to a life, where the constructing or the acceptance of

a life lies.”