AMEN

What’s there can fit in a hand. Take, for example,

the lines in a hand that years have called forth.


You can’t be around nothing, thank God. On an ocean

liner, people cling to one another. On an ocean liner,


people turn away. At the heart of the matter

a slow heart beats. I’m frothing at the bit.


Dear computer, please live one more year.


Minister of Loping Through One’s Twenties

Like a Three-Legged Dog, I’d like to make a deposition:


I’ve slept in the tall grass while someone mowed

the lawn. Some days I wake up less, wake up missing,


knotted or stripped to the wire. Tell me anything

in your best foghorn voice and I’ll believe you.