In that dream who was it so lanky and tan who parked and waved and excitedly ran? I know who it was I am sure it was Jan who decided at last I could be the right man, she parked her long Chevrolet on the edge of a hill and she waved as if I were the key to her plan...

For my beloved      ones, a temporary stay of execution.

Awake, passersby!      Lilies aim flaming bugles— trumpeting July.

    In a window corner, an inspired spider     has spun unwittingly a perfect bowl     for collecting raindrops: miniature crystal balls     for predicting insect or human futures...

What belongs here is lungs exhausted by waiting cars, oil-dark hands flashing in dim light; concrete floors cold even in summer; grime-stained waiting chairs; air smudged from cigarette smoke and the near, incessant traffic— in our ears the all-day whine persists in...

An awkward unbeautiful ferry, too big for the room it sailed in— whose slanting metal bars did nothing to keep the rough sea out, but appeared to keep my father in, clinging as he did to one with his too-thin arm, and tilting his gaze to see around them: such a...

Because he likes cats, he doesn't realize how like a dog he pets her—with the patience bordering on impatience one allots a too affectionate dog; petting and worrying she might do something distasteful or inappropriate—lick his legs, drool, or show an unwelcome...

Whoever invented that particular violence, stripping one by tenuous one the original daisy's petals and finding an answer in injury was right.

I never stopped to consider its less illicit pleasures: its syllables tumbling so readily off the tongue, the tongue slapping lightly, repeatedly, the roof of the mouth, the mouth left open, as if with expectation, or in surprise, or song—this solo which leaves you...

The hill our house is on     seems steeper each day, and the house shifts uneasily     on its foundation. Trees lean as I walk, and I hear     strange new animals in the woods. Something   ...

I say no sex is worth dying for, no man worth living with—nevermind for— I say Caution comma is my new first name, my old first name, my last— I say not even Death will know me. I know the first bite of any apple's best, the one the mouth's juices leap to meet,...

He imagines she’s boiling water for tea— he, just sitting down to beer and ribs. He remembers her kettle doesn’t whistle or sing as she’s been known to, just risks boiling over— it’s like her, he muses, to have a kettle like that, to think her singing...

She smells like herself again, all of me washed, I hope reluctantly, away. We embrace with a hint of the military, though who's the soldier, I couldn't say. Slow missile, I aim my car toward the dark reaches of another state, and begin to calculate my ETA, absently...