In and out of morphine dreams, he flies through the unfinished roof of Illinois sky. Below, matchbox-sized farm machines. A silo becomes his father's thermos, the silver-capped tower from which he stole sips at ten, his first secret. Back …

I wrote her a poem.She said, “I hate poetry.” I said, “OK, just read the words then."

There was no need to drive. She could travel ten miles in ten minutes. She merely had to be careful not to step on any cars or trucks.

She thinks this is the place she dreamed

The gate squeaked, the gravel shuffled and the letterbox clattered as February 14th's mail cascaded to the ground.

I will show you how, in the spring, the sidewalks here look like a crossword puzzle resting under a glass of lemonade,

Suddenly I'm not feeling it anymore. / Poetry has become insufficient. / I can't do it like I used to.

As air warms and warm/ winds stir, green becomes the force/ that surges the plains.

Her voice gets screechy as she talks of the boy he was caught fondling in the bathroom of a bowling alley. The worst part: the dumb schmuck doesn’t even bowl.

That streetcar named Desire, it don't hardly stop for me no more. Leastwise not while I'm awake, and I don't have to be telling no nosy aides why I make them noises in my sleep.

A cheap pocket knife was the only sharp I carried in my backpack and they allowed me that. The man with the pot tattoo on his neck said, “All of us here needs some type of knife. You gotta cut up your food. We don't…

The light of day is screaming, shook by the calls of howler monkeys, their low roar hanging in the salt, in the black sand riding the wind, as Playa Negra outstretches its infinite arms.

sentinels in a frost-blackened field

Go diddle in the sand// to save some other sinner/ a death of stones.

I can't believe it's Frankie, but there he is at a table on the far side, just in front of the big picture window. I hold the menu close to my face and peek again over the top, watching as he reaches under the white linen tablecloth to plant…