DPF / Dickey

For Berryman, from The Best American Poetry 1997, editor James Tate, series editor David Lehman.

from The Death of John Berryman / by William Dickey

He loosened his necktie and the recurrent dream
of walking out under water to the destined island.
His mother went over in pearls; his father went over.
His real father went over, whoever his father was.

DPF / Orozco

For ghostly carriages, from The FSG Book of Latin American Poetry, edited by Ilan Stavans.

from Ballad of Forgotten Places / by Olga Orozco (1920-1999, Argentina) translated by Marcy Crow

My places would look like broken mirages,
clippings of photographs torn from an album to orient nostalgia,
but they have roots deeper than this sinking ground,
these fleeing doors, these vanishing walls.

DPF / Hong

For some palaces are built of words, from The Best American Poetry, 2013, guest edited by Denise Duhamel. Series editor, David Lehman. A little traveling talisman to hover over my flight into a rainy town today.

from A Parable / by Anna Maria Hong

        For our wages,

we were pinned with corsages dense with
glossy leaves, which became permanent
appendages.

DPF / Buchanan

For mosaics, from Poetry Foundation. The rest of the poem may be found here:
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/182363

from The Sheep Who Fastened the Sky to the Ground / by Oni Buchanan, b. 1975

        I gathered

bouquets of clover, strung violets from the fence slats.
Sometimes I whispered, but the words disappeared
before I knew what they were or what they meant.

DPF / O’Rourke

For Cordelia, from The Academy of American Poets, Poem-A-Day today. The rest of the poem may be found here today:
http://www.poets.org/

from Ever / by Meghan O’Rourke, b. 1976

Even now I can’t grasp “nothing” or “never.”
They’re unholdable, unglobable, no map to nothing.
Never? Never ever again to see you?
An error, I aver. You’re never nothing

DPF / Zolynas

For dusk in California, from A Book of Luminous Things, edited by Czeslaw Milosz.

from Zen of Housework / by Al Zolynas

a ceremony of sparrows and bare branches
is setting in Western America.