Crow-Work

His poetry, essays, and reviews have appeared widely in such journals as The Iowa Review, The New Yorker, and The Kenyon Review. He is a professor of English and the Heritage Chair in Writing at George Mason University. He currently resides in Fairfax, VA.

eleven books of poetry.

A rain-drenched fox crosses the graveyard

The moon,

faceless, thumb-worn,

Is as empty as my mind tonight,

Reflective, but dully, coldly

Whole until its edges wear away.

Poets, you offer as a toast,

in our youth begin in gladness;

But thereof come in the end despondency and madness.

pawned my chair.

I pawned my bed.

Ain’t got nowhere to lay my head.

Oh lordy me,

didn’t we shake sugaree?

Everything I got is done and pawned.

Everything I got is done and pawned.

This drone,

this wiry static,

That fills my head when all I want is a word

Or two, the name for this or that

stark clarity.

To the end, my heart repeats itself:

Clench and release,

clench and release, clench. . .

Hears them and makes sense of them

I apologize sincerely and somehow she hears my words,