Rod McKuen-esque

(also from Copper Canyon Press)

"How do we come to be here next to each other
in the night
Where are the stars that show us to our love..."

"When you have nothing to say,
the sadness of things
speaks for you."

"Only now
I see that you
are the end of spring
cloud passing..."

"God comes to us,
or should come to us, all"

"The fog is the body it can't quite be
these evenings of early August,
coming together"

"What the beloved wants
Is to burn more brightly,
To have more life."

"It is like the moment
after I say goodbye.
We become ourselves
for a slow moment
I want to lengthen
between us."

"Being without
You was almost more than I
Could bear."

"These things I had once. This brightness, softness, sweetness
She gave me once to my keeping.
Piece of this true sun."

I have to think Rod is the most influential poet in America, based on this evidence. Sure, I cooked the books, put my thumb on the scale, but it only took me a few minutes to do it.