The rest of the poems I'm going to read
are from the new poem section of the book which for some reason
always comes first.
I'll start with the title poem "PM AM,"
which is a pair of poems and very
difficult to convince editors and typesetters
that PM comes first.
We had to redo that a couple of times.
"PM."
The child is unreconciled to the dark.
Adrift on her small bed, she listens
for voices down the hall as if they were familiar waves
lapping at the unknown shore.
But her mother is almost silent.
The needle has dropped from her hand
and the only embroidery left is the sky stretched
between window frames.
Her father loosens his tie.
He has used up his small store of words
and even his sleep will be burdened by the heavy breathing
of others.
This is how she remembers it.
The house creaking as if it were loose on its moorings,
the unnavigable dark.
"AM."
The child gets up on the wrong side of the bed.
There are splinters of cold light on the floor
and when she frowns, the frown freezes on her face
as her mother has warned her it would.
When she puts her elbows roughly on the table, her father says,
"You got up on the wrong side of the bed."
And there is suddenly a cold river of spilled milk.
These gestures are merely formal, small stitches
in the tapestry of a childhood she
will remember as nearly happy.
Outside the snow begins again.
Ordinary weather blurring the landscape
between that time and this as she swings her cold legs
over the side of the bed.