whatever weaknesses you displayed// as empathetic human fellow traveler,/ your command of English survives you,// on into the last echoes of the human/ once we’re gone.

She arranged to have an abortion at a doctor Greene’s office, who practiced out of a converted house on Solano Avenue on the north side of Berkeley. I took her there the day of the procedure. You couldn’t go to a regular hospital to have this kind of thi

They’re young and haughty. 27’s still a long ways off. They read about the famous, not the dead. Dusty dragonflies will not land upon them, and they are really only in love with the dishwasher. Now there’s a problem. Poetry is dead,

I do not jerk up to sirens birds doorbell shouts hello hello through the letterbox hello

It was time to leave.

destroy the day rip up the track jump in the water eat nothing but bugs

far beyond the far beyond sparkles the stars like sparkles

—Michiko, are you allergic to cats?

Standing there as you walked away from me that late March afternoon, in the park off Meridian Street, the spring tableau seemed

the view is breathtaking here.

a soft wooden clatter, wind-battered reeds/bound to the banks of ditches rank,/ill-purposed waters slide into low swamps/whose waters into rivers seep and crawl.

I’m well aware of the shadow stalking just to my left, her mannish voice flirting with my sensibilities.

I saw the shiny dime . . . .

Between the commercials, the local news is rampant with fusillade of bullets going raving mad, driven by some Machiavellian brainfuck, or bombshells smiling down with angels in black; emoticons of solid metal and pride. But you would put your faith in…

You welcome the new girl by putting a message on her back. I breathe harder until she pops or until you ask me what I’ve seen or until you see my hand turn into a fist.