Michiko never telephoned Frank from Washington or Chicago.

The beer on the shore is Lapping at the foam of memory And I can’t sit still Until I take my pill Karma Wash, Hog Wash and Swill I went to the top of the heap At the bottom of the Hill I saw a bum’s sign that read: “Will eat dog food for

After all, if she could get through World War II with no more than a couple of letters and numbers on her arm, she could, sure as hell, get through this.

I had this dream. We were living together, and we were in bed asleep when strange, enormous cats began crowding around our windows and meowing. They made awful scratching and scraping noises at the windows, trying to come in. But I couldn’t wake you up.

"It all began with a painting," I said. "Mostly blue. Acrylic. Naturalistic in a modern sense. She was stylized but recognizable, and her breasts were exposed. Everyone could see her disordered skirt. The painter was a fan of Herrick.

Often I want to kiss their lips Drink in every word they have written

I wonder what it would be like to dog-paddle in the middle of the ocean. I wonder how Jean Auguste Ingres got the flesh tones for “Odalisque.” I wonder if bees have dreams.

Sorrow fences with fear and questions

I, Seer of the Stars, Cartographer of the Cosmos, / measure my mass, and to whom do I owe this woe...

I can hear soft rain

There is a false dawn, when night still holds sway, but tempered with promise; anticipation.

It is hard

“You know, Miss Viv, I love looking at the sun when it’s almost gone. It kinda looks like an orange and apple squished together. Those are the colors. And the puffy clouds under it look like a bed. It’s going to sleep."

I'm standing on a toilet, trapped behind a stall. Watching Father U mop up the blood.

He said, “It was only after I broke my neck and even like maybe a year later that I really started realizing that I had something to say.”