From words to meaning― how complicated it is.

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.

Why do you lie? the old woman repeats when her mouth is not busy filling the waste bin. We sit as far away from her wheedle and wretch as the small waiting room allows. A young woman glares at us through the mental health clinic's safety glass…

“What's a slut?”

She laughs and licks it.

" ... that’s a seriously good result for an opening night."

It was almost like I was dreaming, he is saying, my visit to the ruins of the factory that made the first Narrative Machines.

Lulls, and the gulls, amid the tides and their tears (And I join their voices and my heart is run), Though each or neither takes no part in my fears, I join no hands with the beach or the years (And the ships slip near plus yon). Held handfast,…

He adopts a stance known as Part the Wild Horse’s Mane but calls it a different name--the Part the Hair of the Skanky Barmaid for a Bleachjob position.

"‘Man-hater’ is such a harsh term,” she says. “I really like it.”

bullets in flight make sharp, snapping noises.

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

mind heart soul will blood sweat tears muscle, and bone,/and then always something else—not more, just else . . .

Green hands wave in freezing water.

you look like the insides of my cheeks chewed.