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                I walked to the lake. I passed the Hooters, the Publix, the                     McDonald’swhere I sometimes use the Internet to grade papers                when my neighbor’s Internet is down. I passed the Wendy’s,                     and the ScottishRites temple, whatever that is. When I got to the coffee shop,                I ran into Vince and John and we talked…

What’s your whisper number, honey?Your point of roll-over or sell? Adrift you lumber, money pit and money doll,dispensing a sense of portly doom, exhalinga lost wherewithal. And yet you have advantages: too big to fail,you shake down squid—wholeecologies!—with stylish slaps of a trigger tail. What means ye by beaching,bleached, titanic paradox? Malnourished, listless,you can reach…

And didn’t I make you? Didn’t I shapethe notes you bend your body round? Didn’t Itag your streets and cityscapes with hue?Even your style—which you think is yours—didn’t I hand it over, like something momma-made,big enough for you to grow into? My wordsin your mouth. The words you use every day,all that old school and…

To my young daughter, I sing the songs my mother sang to me. Which is to say: to my young daughter,I sing an eclectic selection of breakup tunes of the 1960s. Now I knowyou’re not the only starfish in the sea / If I never hear your name again,it’s all the same to me…That doesn’t…

Translated from Slovenian by Michael Thomas Taren and the author The historyof the growth of heavenis the motion of every eyelashon everyborn and unborn human face.No kitties, notrees, no herdsof wild animalsare excluded or forgotten.The historyof the growth of heaven is the imageof all pastures,the image of all shades on greenpasturesin the blaze and dusk….

since I couldn’t say tomorrowI said Wednesday since I couldn’t say Cleveland I saidOhio                since I couldn’t say hello I hung upsince I couldn’t say burger a waitress finishedmy sentence  a green-striped mint                 dissolved  on my tonguefrom peacock to dove since I couldn’t say my name                               I opened  as if preparing for a throatculture since…

Someone else died again,and when I heard, I feltthe green oceanlike a suffocating quiltpulled over me. I had a fatheronce with a heroinneedle in his arm. So what am Icapable of? I’d rather flipa book open than attend a party,feel my numbedfingertips in the cold and neveragain hear my sister’s voiceecho, “Joel killed himselflast night.”…

“Nature’s Grand Hotel has its Season, like the others. As the guests one by one pack, pay, and depart, and the seats at the table-d’hote shrink pitifully at each succeeding meal…Why not stay on quietly here, like us, and be jolly?” —Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows Don’t sit too close, the smellof her…