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At Kwik-Fill, I pump ferns and turtles into my tank. They'll ride here in my dark until they burn. Millions of years later, now, our traffic traverses ancient landscapes, zone by zone, desert by forest by marsh by swamp until we sleep. At night, like you, I almost remember riblike sprays of cattails, pterodactyl eyes…

Once she stuffed me with aspic in the days when I felt I should return invitations. After all, she was my teacher. Her tongue lashings burst as waves of hives on my belly. I'd eaten her lethal low-calorie jelly. When did she eat her jelly doughnuts? Not near me. When I spoke out of turn…

The night Sam Cooke was shot, I ran out into the backyard and shouted, “Suck my dick, God!” My father slapped my face, said if he ever heard me say anything like that again, I could forget about driving, ever— I'd be in my own house with my own kids and he'd show up to…

Poco filo mi resta, ma spero che avrò modo di dedicare al prossimo tiranno i miei poveri carmi. Non mi dirà di svenarmi come Nerone a Lucano. Vorrà una lode spontanea scaturita da un cuore riconoscente e ne avrà ad abbondanza. Potrò egualmente lasciare orma durevole. In poesia quello che conta non è il contenuto…

Lost in Gravedona without a map, You ask directions in handicap Italian of a stout old woman. She laughs, “Stop struggling, come in, And whilst I think them out, I'll make us tea And, if you don't mind, have a chat with me For I'm half-Welsh, half-Genovese.” Her father built this house, planted trees “That…

Pappy died, I flew home, sat on the same old couch holding my mother's head to my breast, the skull for later beneath the frizzy perm: haunch of a starving lamb. No hole, no stone: smoke, a few words for the assembled testimonial few, too much bourbon not enough dry turkey then backwards in the…

Alla televisione Cristo in croce cantava come un tenore colto da un'improvvisa colica pop. Era stato tentato poco prima dal diavolo vestito da donna nuda. Questa è la religione del ventesimo secolo. Probabilmente la notte di San Bartolomeo o la coda troncata di una lucertola hanno lo stesso peso nell'Economia dello Spirito fondata sul principio…

Nature is never wrong, the lilies say, Simply alive in the pond, life goes on. Despite carnivorous violence, firestorms, We are porcelain quiet. Sit on this bench, Listen to the Baroque Ensemble play Music composed during the French Revolution; cherish the bees Closed in our petals, close your eyes, Close them, close yourself in these…

This happened just once. Desire had stopped at some remote crossroads. I don't know whose heart just stood there without an owner. It was one of those little folds in time when the absurd moon could rise without a purpose. We all knew where melancholy could lurk in ravines, or even lie sprawled out by…