That summer I fucked Kathi R. from Wheaton, as much as I could. She called me Professor Obsessor. She was short and practically without tits, but must have had the longest arms, because she could somehow reach down around my ass while I was on top and she

It was Phil Collins on MTV, “In the Air Tonight,” that helped cement it for me. It was the beginning of the end of my marriage. Well, not exactly the true beginning of the end. You would have to go pretty far back, honestly, to find the true root of it

Morning. A hot bright sun shines down on the cool dark depths of the deep blue sea.

The longer this goes on the worse it gets.

the wiggly word / floats toward the crowd

Gary wrote in beautiful brevity of this most fabled story told with strings. Of it's breathtaking majesty and boundless power.

Her dad regaled me with stories of his up-from-the-bootstraps climb out of poverty on the hard-scrabble, rough-and-tumble Lower East Side of New York, where he founded the leading supplier of hyphens to writers of purple prose.

I will miss you, sure, let it be known. The memory, and the dream, both. That familiar smell of Old Spice when someone wearing it comes near. And the smell of Coppertone Suntan Lotion on the beaches of our youth in Chicago. And the pressure of your fing

Pieces that said shrug a shrug and then another and one to right with the eyes that squint and one to left with rhythm that never left. And piece after piece, after piece they stich themselves, née weave a tapestry that is the dance your very walk swayed

And you should know, every woman smiles at a man buying flowers, because … we can imagine. We can only hope.

When they first brought me home, I was their pride and joy. Then, one day, they put me in this wooden box.

What I would say

"I’d rather move a word around a page than raise a glass or pass a plate or work a room immune to poetry."

played-out

“Look them straight in the eye, keep your mouth shut unless spoken to, and make no sudden moves.”