...as our mouths quietly filled with water again and again...

I grew up in the predominantly all-white neighborhood of Warwick, Rhode Island; I was one of only two Black kids in my elementary, junior high, and high schools. I dressed well, presented myself well, got good grades.

My friends and I would see you on the streets and say you looked like a villain. Slicked back black hair, tall and thin, distrusting gaze, but handsome. All sinister swagger.

Mondays, Mondays, Mondays!

Ha-ha! I love my wife Gwen! She's the best. Today, she sprinkled paprika in my oatmeal—to prank me I bet—and I didn’t figure it out until halfway through the bowl.

i got rid of my pack rat tendencies
and spread all the feathers

Your hair blows like a plastic grocery bag...

The seafood restaurant in my dreams closed down last night.

Many days I realize my dreams are fiction half way through.

"Lyric" and "Obvious Pairs"

Margot and I had humped once, too, when I stopped by and Andrea wasn’t home.

its stagnant swollen limbs...

I saw the whole thing from my sunroom, how the front wheel pinned his legs, shredded his muddy jeans then tore through the rest of him.

1985: the year of “high-risk” and Careless Whispers. His appearance was brief —lasting all of ten second— but there he was, following an interview between Debbie Harry and Nick Rhodes on the Palladium. 

When I heard the name, I was sure it held a deeper meaning. No, she said, laughing... She explained that the knot combines the features of a reef knot, a thief knot, and a granny knot. It’s a portmanteau, not a metaphor. Grief has no meaning, she said.

I love beginnings. The clack of the wheels on a roller coaster climb, the smell of cotton candy and grease.

Algo - 

I am precise for the machine: tenderness+immediate? Did you 
mean tenderness immediately? cheap+recipe+

for+one. when+you+sit+down+and+they+look+
at+you+like+that. libra+[you

You turn to face me, apologize for the mountain, for not drinking enough water, for not letting me turn back to make sure you were safe at a lower elevation. For not realizing what this would do to me.

"Strange," "Rare Books," "New Suit," and "The Killer"

"Hey Em, it's Dad. Sorry it's so early ..."

in this one you’re a six foot / two hundred pound prize

Why did Train A leave while Train B was still getting ready?

"Why This Pregnant Woman Walked Out of a Subway Restaurant in Tears" and "The Return of Sad Beck, Thank God"

"A Diaristic Quality but Everything Is Still Gone" and "Jonas Mekas at the Tate Modern"

Reason for rescue? What does that mean? Cause it was dying, I don't know. What do you want me to say?

Last Christmas, you asked for my latest address and sent a postcard all the way from Paris. There was a close-up shot of Hemingway’s face on the front. On the back, you wrote: “You deserve all the good in the world.” I took a picture of it but never sent anything back.

There wasn’t a bike rack because car people owned this town. You locked up to telephone poles covered in missing cats and hoped your chain stayed chained. In the shadows of rusting delivery trucks the

As Yoda sat on a tree stump, perfectly force-carved to complement his bony exterior and knobby joints, he realized that it had been five days in a row now that he had sat on this tree stump.

if i say 'i am sorry' to so-and-so...

Most people prefer the Vulcan statue...

In my Sunday dress, I suckled water from the Baskin Robbin’s water fountain — the one nearest to the men’s restroom. My father sat at a table a few feet away, writing notes in his Bible for his next