Gravity and Center: Selected Sonnets, 1994-2022


 Contents
 
 Title Page
 Copyright Notice
 Dedication
 Epigraph
 I. from The Visible Man
 
 Arte Povera
 White Spine
 Adam Dying
 from Chiffon Morning
 Peonies
 II. from Middle Earth
 
 Icarus Breathing
 The Hare
 Kayaks
 Casablanca Lily
 Veil
 Swans
 Radiant Ivory
 Black Camellia
 Landscape with Deer and Figure
 Green Shade
 Kyushu Hydrangea
 Crows in Evening Glow
 Necessary and Impossible
 Cleaning the Elephant
 Morning Glory
 Myself with Cats
 Pillowcase with Praying Mantis
 Melon and Insects
 Insomnia
 Original Face
 Mask
 My Tea Ceremony
 Fish and Watergrass
 Olympia
 Blur
 III. from Blackbird and Wolf
 
 Gulls
 Oil & Steel
 Ambulance
 Maple Leaves Forever
 Migraine
 To Sleep
 The Tree Cutters
 Birthday
 Gravity and Center
 American Kestrel
 Quarry
 Homosexuality
 Haircut
 Toxicology
 Poppies
 Bowl of Lilacs
 Shaving
 My Weed
 Self-Portrait with Red Eyes
 Embers
 Wet Apples
 Beach Walk
 Eating the Peach
 Dead Wren
 Hymn
 The Lost Bee
 Bees
 Mirror
 City Horse
 IV. from Touch
 
 Solitude: The Tower
 Shrike
 Sunflower
 Mechanical Soft
 Mosquito Mother
 Dead Mother
 Broom
 Hens
 Taxidermied Fawn
 Ulro
 Pig
 Hairy Spider
 Last Words
 Legend
 The Flagellation
 Quai aux Fleurs
 Orange Hole
 Sleeping Soldiers
 Bats
 Seaweed
 Passion
 One Animal
 Laughing Monster
 Self-Portrait with Addict
 Quilt
 Doll
 Resistance
 Away
 Carwash
 Myself Departing
 V. from Blizzard
 
 Face of the Bee
 On Peeling Potatoes
 Black Mushrooms
 Lingonberry Jam
 To a Snail
 Jelly
 To the Oversoul
 The Party Tent
 At the Grave of Robert Lowell
 Recycling
 Paris Is My Seroquel
 Doves
 Goya
 Weeping Cherry
 Migrants Devouring the Flesh of a Dead Horse
 Super Bloom
 Haiku
 Pheasant
 On Pride
 Keep Me
 Epivir, d4T, Crixivan
 Ginger and Sorrow
 Rice Pudding
 Blizzard
 Dandelions (III)
 On Friendship
 Corpse Pose
 Man and Kitten
 Kayaking on the Charles
 VI. New Poems
 
 Mouse in the Grocery
 ELF-STORAGE
 Time and Weather
 Guns
 Daffodils
 Glass of Absinthe and Cigarette
 Vetiver
 Sow with Piglets
 Afterword
 Acknowledgments
 Index of Titles and First Lines
 Also by Henri Cole
 About the Author
 Newsletter Sign-up
 Copyright
 
 
 
 Guide
 
 Cover
 Title Page
 Dedication
 I. from The Visible Man
 Arte Povera
 Afterword
 Acknowledgments
 Index of Titles and First Lines
 Contents
 Copyright
 Start of content
 
 
 
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 Table of Contents
 About the Author
 Copyright Page
 
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 FOR CLAIRE MALROUX
 
 
 
 I came from a place with a hole in it,
 my body once its body, behind a beard of hair.
 And after I emerged, all dripping wet,
 heavy drops came out of my eyes, touching its face.
 I kissed its mouth; I bit it with my gums.
 I lay on it like a snail on a cup,
 my body, whatever its nature was,
 revealed to me by its body. I did not know
 I was powerless before a strange force.
 I did not know life cheats us. All I knew,
 nestling my head in its soft throat pouch,
 was a hard, gemlike feeling burning through me,
 like limbs of burning sycamores, touching
 across some new barrier of touchability.
 
 
 
 
 I
 FROM
 
 
 THE VISIBLE MAN
 
 
 
 Arte Povera
 
 
 In the little garden of Villa Sciarra,
 I found a decade of poetry dead.
 In the limestone fountain lay lizards
 and Fanta cans, where Truth once splashed from The Source.
 How pleased I was and defiant because
 a dry basin meant the end of description & rhyme,
 which had nursed and embalmed me at once.
 Language was more than a baroque wall-fountain.
 Nearby, a gas-light shone its white-hot tongue,
 a baby spat up—the stomach’s truthtelling—
 a mad boy made a scene worthy of Stalin.
 Ah, to see the beast shitting in its 
 
 White Spine
 
 
 Liar, I thought, kneeling with the others,
 how can He love me and hate what I am?
 The dome of St. Peter’s shone yellowish
 gold, like butter and eggs. “My God,” I prayed
 anyhow, as if made in the image
 and likeness of Him. Nearby, a handsome
 priest looked at me like a stone; I looked back,
 not desiring to go it alone.
 The college of cardinals wore punitive red.
 The white spine waved to me from his white throne.
 Being in a place not my own, much less myself,
 I climbed