Aphra Behn is not wearing all her clothes 
in some part of South America nobody knows. 
Everyone is polite, and not. Maybe she left off 

Books say parents
didn't mourn their children

in previous centuries, that

You hire a guide. See several waterfalls,
a dock for a boat, and, indeed, a boat.
You rock to a shore where bats rise as gulls.

Ah, to be old and rage uncontrollably,
to command the sun and moon to stop
and yet be treated like a dog,

    Every time the door opens,
the mother bird flies off. What's left
    slumps and pulses. I determine

The jay streaks through the lilacs
              in color clash.
I note down: Invent
     outdoor birdswing

At dusklight she slips
into acetate underclothing,
all rustling.

From the frank rendering of the sock
to the foot and the hem released
of its fold, with scent marking

The budding South Sudanese community in Omaha, Nebraska.More than a hundred years ago, my relatives emigrated from Czechoslovakia to Nebraska, thus escaping the privilege of becoming fodder for the aristocracy’s canons. Why Nebraska? The railroad …