WEBVTT

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The rest of the poems
I'm going to read

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are from the new poem section of
the book which for some reason

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always comes first.

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I'll start with the
title poem "PM AM,"

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which is a pair
of poems and very

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difficult to convince
editors and typesetters

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that PM comes first.

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We had to redo that
a couple of times.

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"PM."

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The child is
unreconciled to the dark.

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Adrift on her small
bed, she listens

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for voices down the hall as
if they were familiar waves

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lapping at the unknown shore.

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But her mother is almost silent.

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The needle has
dropped from her hand

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and the only embroidery
left is the sky stretched

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between window frames.

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Her father loosens his tie.

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He has used up his
small store of words

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and even his sleep will be
burdened by the heavy breathing

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of others.

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This is how she remembers it.

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The house creaking as if it
were loose on its moorings,

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the unnavigable dark.

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"AM."

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The child gets up on the
wrong side of the bed.

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There are splinters of
cold light on the floor

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and when she frowns, the
frown freezes on her face

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as her mother has
warned her it would.

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When she puts her elbows roughly
on the table, her father says,

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"You got up on the
wrong side of the bed."

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And there is suddenly a
cold river of spilled milk.

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These gestures are merely
formal, small stitches

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in the tapestry
of a childhood she

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will remember as nearly happy.

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Outside the snow begins again.

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Ordinary weather
blurring the landscape

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between that time and this
as she swings her cold legs

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over the side of the bed.

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