There is comfort in animals They give themselves so completely, so openly to their lives, to today without any yesterdays or tomorrows. They accept the inherited patterns, without remorse or exultation. Move easy in their agility and grace, Accept their own faces, their bodies. Even the baggy elephant doesn’t mourn before the mirror, beautiful tiger … Continue reading →

for harmonica   You suck on 4 and bend it like a hickory switch until just before your chewing gum loses all its flavor.   Now slide down to 3 for a draw and a blow, but make it quick – if you take time for a lap dance, you’re taking too long, you have … Continue reading →

So I went to school, and, once I’d learned to read and write, waved goodbye to my classmates, as I began scribbling in the margins and then on blank white paper proper, reading unassigned books, buying magazines for everything but the pictures, even scanning the morning newspaper.   I kept in touch, observed closely even … Continue reading →

there is a line in a novel that has long since been lost, reading: “A woman moves in three different ways, and those that make figure-eights with their hips have it.”   the thrall of it wore off a long time ago but that doesn’t prevent my muscle (ha!) memory from working against me in … Continue reading →

Vincent Van Gogh 1890   He leans against the jamb, flicks a thick, damp brush. I point to the flowers. I gathered them for you, I say, and in your white vase, yellow chrysanthemums, and white ones, with some pink and red what-are-they-calleds up in front. He pinches the brush in a cloth, looks at … Continue reading →

I guess I never knew/What she was     talking about, I guess I never knew/What she was living without. Jackson Browne students and I—her visits, her concern—make a tea, adjust a shawl, say a word. And the Higginson bulb, the grated soap and antiseptic smell, Vera pumping her cure until the woman is feeling full, … Continue reading →

Baby, the fact is your E squares my mc.   (Hmmm….)   So, uh, I guess I’m still working on a hypothesis about how symbols become syllables become life sentences in love, so hear me out, darling, because, oh—   your energy and our light and my mass and us twirling under a new mathematics’ … Continue reading →

Lettered last year in football and track; by summer he’d lost both legs in Iraq. Continue reading →

She didn’t remember who had first told her to, but whoever it was had a sharp tongue, so she thought it might’ve been her great-grandmother who looked stiff as a plate in that photograph of her by the grandfather clock.  She’d been told her great-grandmother’s tongue could cut air, but the air was invisible to … Continue reading →

Inside, a child-like pole dancer practices in the light three o’clock crowd.   I order my customary beer and a shot, get my change in singles.   The air weighs heavy with dust in the dim light,   the odor of broken glass and failed dreams—   dancers and drinkers all.   The bartender’s son … Continue reading →