Book of My Nights

Thom Ward, editor at BOA Editions

Ilya Kaminsky, Philip Levine, and Gerald Stern

Illinois Arts Council, the Lannan Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts

The Best American Poetry of 1998, The Breadloaf Anthology of Comtemporary American Poetry, DoubleTake, The English Record, The Iron Horse Literary Review, The Kenyon Review, TriQuarterly, Water-Stone.

grew larger by my absence to another,

in every leaf and branching
decision, snug inside each fast bud,
together in the flower, and again
in the pulp, mingling in the fragrance
of the first mouthful and the last.

And the apple tree. Look and see
the entire lineage alive

And that’s why you’re divided: yes and no.

you can’t love except by remembering.

and that’s why you can’t sleep except by forgetting,