Paul Willis

I like the way that shrubs and flowers
lean against my classroom windows
as if wanting to enroll. What would the azalea
say when asked about the Forest of Arden?...

My house burned down a month ago, so today
I walked to the bookstore and bought myself
a dictionary, a Bible, and a calendar.

What else does one need, really? For Malvolio,...

A friend of theirs had been festering
like an old sandwich, rotting
a little before disposal. They had to come,
but it got to where they held their breath...

When I get up in the night to stifle
a cough with hot tea, and make my way
through the black terrain of the dining room,

there are candles waking in the dark,...

A very little thing is rolling
down the street at dawn,
some little yellow thing, a lemon,
rolling down the center
of the street from the little...

      But Martha was distracted with much serving (Luke 10:40)

Years ago, my mother sang in a quartet
with her sister Lorraine and their two cousins.
The Cousin Quartet, it was called....

I hear you’re good at washing feet—
ever thought of washing the dishes?
You wouldn’t have to stop talking.

Jane Hirshfield has made her home in northern California for almost 30 years--plenty of time for a redwood tree to reach for her open window....

Gail, remember the boy that broke
his neck on the campus lawn—
just kidding around, turning flips
with his college buddies?
He got his diploma this afternoon...

Now I live in divided and distinguished
worlds, joined by an equatorial smudge,

the common murk of middle earth....