When I am not exercising or performing space walks or cleaning or developing vehicle software, I watch the sun rise 16 times a day.

I had written a few aborted short stories before, but really I specialized in aborted novels.

Because you find it interesting and want it analyzed without the burden of being analyzed yourself.

This guy’s old school, Roselli says to me over the phone, real old school. How old school can you be, I’m thinking, in a sport that’s already run its course in just a few years.

A Ford Explorer firetruck and a cul-de-sac basement had a birdbath at night.

grandma was real creole
man
BRIGHT bright

As the real world feels increasingly devoid of magic, we are correct to admire those writers who attempt to interject some magic back into it.

By now you tell me how I feel.
You tell me
what I will do and how I will act.
You do the creating
for me,

I think ten t-shirts would be too many to write about, but I’m perversely hoping that twenty-two is somehow not too many. A writer can, I think, pass beyond “too many” or “too much” to a sense of rightness or aptness. The paradox: More than too much is sometimes not too much.

I can't in good conscience watch a sixteenth season of Big Brother.

I'm going to abandon everything / after this poem 

Violette moved away from Calvin toward a group of rhododendrons.

Calvin felt calm.

He thought about God.

[victory lobe] 

tiny towns or a dog could keep me pleased  

for six months, then I’d wear felt triangles  

look like December, have needles on me

molt on the plane to the

I usually distance myself from someone after i’m physical with them.

Skateboarders have to be tough. It’s not if you’ll get hurt but when, not if it will be bad but if it will be bad enough to keep you off the board.

I sent a text to my father, telling him I saw three coyotes. My father is an admirer of the natural world. I sent another text about a nearby house that had been abandoned. I'd noticed the word “SATAN” scrawled across the front door with blue paint that morning.

My novel is my father, I am saying, and it too is the best art I could make but not the best art I will make. For I am 33 and my feminist Jungian therapist says often: the beginning of adulthood is forgiving your parents for their sundry errors.

Halfway through Pilates class, the teacher decided to use telepathy. She said she was sick of the sound of her voice, always repeating the same cues. 

If you require more of your ferret than simple love and affection, our staff of specialized trainers will provide you with an ATTACK FERRET for your security.  

thinking about how all of it started

thinking about how the poems ends