First, pick up chicken, rock back
& forth, back & forth, then set down.
He will stand where you put him four

It was a pretty boat, tied to the pier,
greeting a city with streets of water,
the great gold griffin of its tall smokestack

Three powerful people
seized me, held me at gunpoint,
and demanded answers. They didn’t want money.

The philosophical pickle ponders
both that which is, and that which
might be “beyond the barrel,” as

I write suicide notes in bed late at night
So they’ll know when I’m dead
That I was not insane, or worse, unkind.

The bananas in the basket
on top of the refrigerator
give me pleasure

For I will consider my dog Poochkin
(& his long-lost brothers, Chekarf & Dogstoyevsky).
For he is the reincarnation of a great canine poet.

windows, fit together
at the joints except for
your face which is a mirror.

Now that we have ordered well may we turn back
upon suffering; after the fixed moments and precision,
to seek comfort in release. Peace being with us,

My sponge
fresh out of her cellophane
A starlet, unintroduced to my kitchen’s ways