Stone had two modes of handwriting: one a gnarly cursive he used to talk to himself and the other block capitals, more easily legible. On a scrap of torn paper in a crate of Damascus Gate research material is a draft of a self-mocking doggerel poem...

take a lemon

the world feels less and less familiar most days
sometimes it is difficult to identify where i truly am
sometimes it is a challenge not to let the ugly parts
infiltrate the joyous

Violet and I sit in her bed a while and talk. She shows me how to unhook and snake a bra through a sleeve.

I could not imagine the dark well of her grief. I wanted to pretend it had nothing to do with me. But I felt compelled to bear witness somehow.

“When Zac started writing the poems, I didn’t think it would get to this.”

so long to call back 
the first time the phone 
rang i was beneath a 
bridge when you rang 
again the roar of cars and 
cargo overhead made it too 
loud to hear you sense of 
sea partially

Two thousand nine is the centennial year of Malcolm Lowry, the British novelist and poet, whose extraordinary novel Under the Volcano appeared in 1947. Lowry’s first version of it was a loosely constructed story about Britons who witness a violent crime in Mexico.

This Year

I’m assured the last renters buried nothing but their dog back here. 

I’ve begun to accrue CVS points to diversify my portfolio. 

I can promise the doctor there’s literally no

If Clubber Lang just chilled out, he would’ve been in Rocky’s corner, too.

“Foresee this, I did not,” Yoda commiserated. But he knew what he had to do. He just didn’t know if he could do it. 

People are always saying...

Marlon, breath puffing out in the cool morning air, says to no one that if the students cry, he will cry too. This isn’t a process you want to see again through new eyes.

Here come the ones who chose / the second option...

You would have believed on the screen was where my attention stayed.

"Letter to Brandon" and "Poem for Julián"

After I jack off to hardcore gay porn...

Recently, I told my mother that I used to climb out of the bathroom window in the upstairs and crawl out onto the chimney ledge, where one slip of the ankle, knee, wrist, and I would have fallen three stories onto cement. Perhaps it began as another peace offering—I was trying to amuse her.

curly like a / shiba inu's tail...

There was no way you could have a pair of Nikes and get clowned.

By now I have learned that sometimes, as Tricia pummels away at the backs of my thighs, I can tolerate a memory or two of George.

the water's instant when still...

There was a yearning in me for her soft whiteness, which went powdery pink in her most private of places.

I want to be remembered like this: taut...