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  • Insomniac Voyeur

    There’s another man on my block who can’t sleep, I’m an admirer of his insomnia, it’s a tool like a glass of water is to thirst. In his case something like music is made, I know because my insomnia stalks his. Our street is lined with maples and has no streetlight and all the dogs…

  • Chicken

    We were stopped at a red light on Pac-Highway just past Sports World and this car full of girls pulls up on our left side. This was late on a Saturday night. It was me and Dave and Mike, and Mike says we should race them. So when the light turns I gun it and…

  • Plane Crash Theory

    These are the first words I’ve written since J. fell down the stairs, unless you count lists. I have lists in my pockets, lists tacked to the bulletin board above my desk. Small lists on Post-its ruffle like feathers against walls and bureaus. Chunky baby food, milk, Cheerios. Diaper Genie refills. Huggies overnight diapers. This…

  • Paint

    Paint is what it is and what it ain’t. A shape or a shell, when dry, that can make what it was painted on seem extraneous. Like a house— who can imagine the canary-yellow smooth or rough integument slough off? And yet, if it did: if you were to take the supports out (the house…

  • Challenged in the Marketplace

    Challenged in the marketplace About the flagrant masturbation The philosopher said he was sorry He could not assuage his hunger as easily. This philosopher of the marketplace Once famously appeared With a lamp in the broad daylight In search of one honest man. It was always the marketplace Where of course he had nothing to…

  • Ice

    I have a recurring dream in which I open the front door to my father’s house, and he has a slanted block of wood, the doorstop, in his hand. He thinks I’m trying to break in. Without his glasses, in the unlit hallway, he thinks I’m a burglar. He’s going to stop me with a…

  • In the Garden

               And the sky! Nooned with the steadfast blue enthusiasm Of an empty nursery. Crooked lizards grassed in yellow shade. The grass was lizarding, Green and on a rampage. Shade tenacious in the crook of a bent stem. Noon. This noon— Skyed, blue and full of hum, full of bloom. The grass was lizarding.

  • Theodicy in New Brunswick

    i. Always the quality of mercy lies beyond us. ii. Somewhere I made mistakes but the light pitches my shadow against my eye as softly as cattail velvet might pacify a cheek. I can’t get tired of this steep and huge afternoon through which my error climbs looking for a weight with which to be…