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My mother, whom I know only from the outside, gave birth to four of us. I see my three sisters from the outside, but I cannot see myself from the outside, though I am of the four. Why is that? To stand alone in my dark store staring through my fenestras is to be singular…

A car in Seattle stops at a red light. A boy in Phoenix throws a rock through a window. A ball player kneels in the on deck circle. Any number of farmers aren’t milking cows. Somewhere a family of six is stuffed into a camper. A wave hitting any beach is followed by another. A…

Charlie Chan ponders the steamer trunk as wisps of seaweed fall from its lock . . . like the hair of a mermaid, thought his son: “Fugacious hints, pop; nothing here but cockroaches.” Detective Jones was impressed. Charlie was not. After all, Jimmy’s education cost seven murders Embarrassed, Jimmy mumbled: “Gee pop, this rash of…

I am conducting a writing workshop where I tell the students to put down in absolutely straight language something so present it flames from the page. Only the facts, I say, but literature, not journalism. Someone asks, may I work from a newsbreak at the scene on my transistor now, the police breaking down a…

The luxury of avoiding the inevitable disappears unharmed. *     *      * the greenness of the night is false to the green of the lawn he said. The thickness of the air is illegitimate if you live in my closet she purred. If you were to travel from this point to anywhere you wouldn’t be here he…

I know you hardly ever leave your room now      & perhaps this letter will remain in the mailbox for months      only to stare out through the grating, white in that shallow black space,      like the moon in the mirror of a one room basement apartment      on a waterfront street; its smooth face like an Indian…

Bless you, gentle Perphenazine and vivacious Amitryptillin! You’re my spring fever and my autumn smelling of campuses. You turn my head as two women would who stopped to stare at me with amazement and delight saying together, where have you been, etc. We belong to each other, darling Triavil, in a ménage à trois! I’m…

Ocean currents spill dust Underwater canyons extend to African rivers from the Congo and back to the Orange Canyons Ain’t this Atlantis? No this is Walvis Ridge! Under the Atlantic deep troughs and long ridges Moonless Mountains to Hawaiian Deep and Johnson Island north to Musicians Seamounts and Mendocino Fracture The Aleutian Trench borders volcanic…