The best of it: new and selected poems

New Poems. Odd blocks The edges of time Bait goat Train-track figure We're building the ship as we sail it Virga Dogleg Cloud Ledge Stations Repetition The pharaohs Pentimenti Bitter pill Polish and balm Retroactive Galápago Finish Shift Easter Island Cut out for it Spiderweb Still life with lemons, oranges and a rose After Zeno

Flamingo Watching 1994 This life Extraordinary lengths Every painting by Chagall The tables freed Leaving spaces Periphery The mock ruin Is it modest? The things of the world Emptiness Slant Apology Vacation A certain kind of Eden No rest for the idle The narrow path When fishing fails Say it straight Glass slippers How successful can she afford to be? Repetition Les natures profondement bonnes sont toujours indécises So different Half a loaf Soft Spring I marveled at how generally I was aided Impersonal A certain meanness of culture The test we set ourself Force Miners' canaries The hinge of spring Deer Sheep in wolves' clothing Snake charm The palm at the end of the mind Poetry is a kind of money Persiflage Masterworks of Ming Breast birds Paired things Osprey Turtle

Elephant Rocks 1996 Living with stripes Doubt Mirage oases Cirque Chemistry That vase of lilacs Connections Dew Lacquer artist All shall be restored Full measure Stars of Bethlehems Crib Bestiary How birds sing How a thought thinks Intention If the moon happened once New clothes Simply by growing larger To the young anglerfish Crustacean Island Imaginary Eskimos Outsider art Caught Les petites confitures Why isn't it all more marked Witness Learning Apogee Against gravity Lacunae Intransigence Age Counsel Insult Silence A cat/a future Hope Losses The cabinet of curiosities Her politeness Bad patch Swept up whole Any morning Relief Part Midas The woman who wrote too much Sonnet to spring A plain ordinary steel needle can float on pure water Distance The vessel and the cup Wooden The second Heat Poetry in translation If she only had one minute

Say Uncle 2000 Corners Star block Mockingbird A hundred bolts of satin The excluded animals Blandeur Composition Patience Coming and going Nothing ventured That will to divest Winter fear Grazing horses Waste Forgetting The fourth wise man Beasts Gaps The fabric of life Help The pass The pieces that fall to earth Don't look back It's always darkest just before the dawn Blunt Diamonds Herring The silence islands Cheshire Yeses Great thoughts Test Crown Bad day Among English verbs Lime light Why we must struggle Drops in the bucket The job Dutch Chemise Deferred silence Attention Failure Matrigupta Weakness and doubt Failure 2 Two more, and up goes the donkey Water under the bridge Your face will stick And all becomes as before

The Niagara River 2005

Home to roost

Carrying a ladder

Sharks' teeth

Weak forces

The elephant in the room

A ball rolls on a point

The best of it

Chinese foot chart

Shipwreck

The other shoe

Atlas

He lit a fire with icicles

Rats' tails

Added significance

Chop

Felix crow

Desert reservoirs

Hailstorm

Expectations

Green hills

Rubbing lamps

Tenderness and rot

Tar babies

Tired blood

Theft

Ideal audience

Caps

Thin

Stardust

Blue China doorknob

Salvage

The light of interiors

Things shouldn't be so hard

The past

Reverse drama

Fake spots

Legerdemain

Hide and seek

Post-construction

Least action

Chart

No names

The material

The well or the cup

Late justice

Backward miracle

Green behind the ears

Thieves

Lighthouse keeping

Tune.