I opened my switchblade mouth and sliced through the scab of silence.

"I always disliked such display of religious fervor. I dislike religious fervor. Period."

All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. All was confusion in the Lubrecht house. Baby Lubrecht had discovered that his favorite blankey, thought by him to have been lost, was in fact being used by his older sister, Lilly Lubrecht.…

"So" he started, which troubled me enough to turn back around and make such focused eye contact that I did not even notice his glass was again full, "you wanted to talk?"

But forever is only for dragons, and children need to be touched or they die.

I wake up with the taste of mud in my mouth. Ashy, sulfurous, charred, with traces of rotten shellfish.

Your precious feet were there once, pressed against the familiar floorboards, where your poems suddenly appeared to you, flashing like lightning. I wonder which window they came in? Here's a thought: you were like that window. You caught…

Sometimes they bleat like sheep when I shave in the shower. They live in a complex social order.

These are the small miracles we witness from my barrio stoop.

We are prisoners of anticipation.

When Mavis is satisfied that her new man and I have met her criteria, and at long last she goes, no one will stand between me and the relentless boredom of my own company.

He begins talking about string theory. He reels me back in, from the dinosaurs to the infinite, human evolution and alternate dimensions, until it makes so little sense that everything makes sense.

"If only we could all look like that." "Truly lovely … such a perfect face." The gallery was busy that day. But still the man and woman stood.

i flew

We stopped at the Western Summit of the Mohawk Trail. Below Richland lay in the valley. I could see all the way to New York State and well into Vermont. From memory, I picked out the Hoosac River running south under the railroad