They would ride with a mechanic synchronicity, like schools of robotic fish, and appear and disappear suddenly, never still, never trapped in traffic snarls, always finding a way through the gridlocks and the side streets.

Perhaps she’s also a do-gooder. One of those socially conscious, change-the-world type girls complete with a never ending supply of life’s own contagious enthusiasm.

For example, I never noticed that the moon had eyelashes, not until tonight. You said you couldn’t really see that, not at all. You preferred the fact that the word “lunatic” sounded like an attic on the moon...

This is what my summer has come to: me, out of a job, aimlessly driving around the city looking for places to write, places to read, places to occupy my time.

And as he looked at the departing pink cushion in his rear-view mirror (shaped like a canoe without the paddles), the latest big question popped into his mind like a hot slice of buttered brown bread from his shiny, metallic stainless steel toaster –

(a sidewalk poem)

One day my mother's lover shaved his beard and legs. Said he couldn’t fit into his tight jeans anymore.

Cooking dinner for one in a city that isn’t my home. A beautiful city that I’m slowly losing interest in, just as I become a local. In a tiny apartment set in the most realistic part of town, I’ve turned the music up loud to drown out my thoughts.

Opposite the foothills, on the field's southern edge, was a stand of old eucalyptus trees, each one a gnarled sentry with bark like burnt skin peeling from its trunk.

IN THE QUIET TIME Forgiveness and forgetfulness are words I sometimes think have worth to just the dead; Though envy creeps, I grudge no man's rewards: There lie no guilt-edged thoughts against my head. The funeral march bears off, away from mind, The petty…

He reached his decision just as the plane entered a pocket of turbulence. The moderate buffeting jiggled the flesh of his stomach, a common if uncomfortable occurrence, which he attempted to remedy by clearing his throat and tugging his shirt outward so

“Let me in,” I begged. “No. Get back stinky feet.” “I washed them.”

New York, New York The winter drizzle left the streets shiny like in movies and this night Manhattan looked like it should look, vibrant, clean and sparkling. It was…

I. The cowboy of my heart rides high in the saddle. Behind him, the long tail of his speeding palomino, golden — like the hair to the girls I was later to want so desperately — stands straight out from his sweating, muscular haunches. It's time.…

His movements were slowed by the metaphysical force of his own passing recollections, and he brushed from his face the silt he'd distrurbed on this forced descent.