1.     Alice Walker: Even As I Hold You  (1979)

Even as I hold you
I think of you as someone gone
far, far away.Your eyes the color
of pennies in a bowl of dark honey
bringing sweet light to someone else            5
your black hair slipping through my fingers
is the flash of your head going
around a corner
your smile, breaking before me,
the flippant last turn                                10
of a revolving door,
emptying you out, changed,
away from me.
Even as I hold you
I am letting you go.                                  15

 

2. James Merrill: Casual Wear (1984)

Your average tourist: Fifty. 2.3

Times married. Dressed, this year, in Ferdi Plinthbower

Originals. Odds 1 to 9 10 *

Against her strolling past the Embassy

Today at noon. Your average terrorist:                          5

Twenty-five. Celibate. No use for trends,

At least in clothing. Mark, though, where it ends.

People have come forth made of colored mist

Unsmiling on one hundred million screens                        9

To tell of his prompt phone call to the station,

"Claiming responsibility" - devastation

Signed with a flourish, like the dead wife´s jeans.

* “one to nine to the tenth power”

3.  Andrew Hudgins:

  Elegy for My Father, Who Is Not Dead (1991)  

One day I’ll lift the telephone

And be told my father’s dead. He’s ready.

In the sureness of his faith, he talks

About the world beyond this world

As though his reservations have                                     5

Been made. I think he wants to go,

a little bit – a new desire

to travel building up, an itch

to see fresh worlds. Or older ones.

He thinks that when I follow him                                  10

He’ll wrap me in his arms and laugh,

The way he did when I arrived on earth.

I do not think he’s right.

He’s ready. I am not. I can’t

Just say good-bye as cheerfully                                15

As if he were embarking on a trip

To make my later trip go well.

I see myself on deck, convinced

His ship’s gone down, while he’s convinced

I’ll see him standing on the dock                               20

And waving, shouting, Welcome back.