please ask me to
kill for you ask
me to imprint
each foot with the
ridges of my
best teeth ask me
to comb the clouds
into candy
for the joy of
toothless trash cans
throughout the land
down smooth stone steps crumble the story hide it under a centipede’s unused foot walk home shedding your skin like the moon the next morning build a fire unlock all the doors
my burning eyes how do I escape from
I and all this time in circles
not wanting to make punchlines or
origami and the balloon
losing air we could have put to some use
cracking what joints I have left and pulling the sword from the stone in my kidney but just kidding we will have to form an orderly queue after all
folded in a musty book
who knows if this design will agree to
finally fly but the caves in
the round curves of the vast rolling
hills of the summer clouds call so
sweetly to the lonely bird in my chest
rubbing the lamp
Sonnet
skimmed emails we deleted too quickly
may have mentioned the forest of bright spears
and ships ready to launch, but once we saw the
reports on the quarterly report from
Ichthyosaur & Associates we
had no doubt what they were up to with those
color-shifting lobbyists and gift baskets
reeking of brine and though they wrote of missed
opportunities no one missed the flotsam
flecked with blood, tossed by ceaseless waves that could
break on our belovèd beans just learning
to climb towards those heavy clouds pierced by sun—
he stopped, mumbled something roses fingers
dawn and walked away from the empty chairs
The Carrier of Ladders
Poems by W. S. Merwin
DISCARD
Ferguson Library
Date Due
Jun – 3 1975
Jun 9 1976
Nov 16 ’76
Jan 24 1977
Aug 15 1977
Feb 21 ’78
Jan 11 1979
May 19 1979
Jun 13 1979
Nov 22 1980
May 6 1981
Jun 22 1982
Dec 4 1982
May 25 1983
May 28 1987
RENEWAL
Jun 17 1987
RENEWAL
Jul 7 – 1987
Jul 28 1987
RENEWAL
Aug 17 1987
Nov 2 1989
Jun 11 1990
RENEWAL
Jul 2 1990
RENEWAL
Jul 16 1990
RENEWAL
Jul 30 1990
Sep 7 1990
Oct 11 1990
Oct 31 1990
if I had a screwdriver
other animals 