John Elsberg   THE STONE He painted a stone black he placed the black stone in a window it grew warm in the sun it was the only warm thing in his house     MY FATHER'S THUMB Near the end when my father lit his pipe the flame would lick his thumb he didn't seem to notice until I grabbed his hand then he looked at me as if the pain was mine     PURSUING STRUCTURE AS AN ONLY CHILD He is the distant figure still but this extended afterbirth of his death is like the slow turn of a lock: it is not a tangible door but it has a frame like any other.     NO BOUNDS his lo ve was like ri ce in a wo oden ves sel she wa s the angr y s e a     VIRGINIA IN LATE AUGUST There is a softness in Virginia light in late August the light promises of the good days of autumn to come it is the reward for enduring all that sweltering heat of mid summer it does not pretend to have dark shadows it is the light of unwinding of having a beer on the reclaimed front porch feet propped on the rail it is the light that gives a distance to all those small defeats of the past a softness that comes from that coolness after mowing that makes any virtue as easy as the curl of the bead on the glass at rest.     LOVE POEM (for Adrian Henri) She would love me if I were darkly handsome She would love me if I were a priest who believed .......in white magic and miracles She would love me if I had an insatiable sexual appetite She would love me if I were a partisan in some noble cause She would love me if I stood up and denounced ........the stupidity of war She would love me if I really had to leave She would love me if I stopped a pretty girl on the street ........and asked her, eye to eye, back to my place She would love me if I glittered always with the "right" ........word or phrase She would love me if I could answer all of her questions She would love me if I displayed the unfortunate symptoms .......of the sufferings of my class She would love me if I had ecstatic visions of a new world order ........and never answered the phone She would love me if I built a high tower .......and said it was good work, and that my work was done She would love me if I could answer none of her questions She would love me if I denounced this society .......as totally corrupt and went underground to write ........revolutionary poems to wrap around bombs She would love me if I exercised a position of great power ........with a cool, decisive hand She would love me if I went into the park and took off .......all my clothes and offered bread to old ladies She would love me if I lived every moment to the fullest She would love me if I talked to her more She would love me if I had said none of the above She would love me (she said) ..................if only I would smile like I used to     John Elsberg is the author of over a dozen books and chapbooks of poetry, most recently A Week in the Lake District, Small Exchange, O F F S E T S, and Sailor. He is also the editor of the long-running magazine Bogg. He has hosted the Sunday open readings at the Writer's Center in Bethesda, Maryland, for twenty years. His daytime job is editor in chief of the U.S. Army Center of Military History. Published in Volume 2, Number 3, Summer 2001.