1. I perceived myself falling in love
in bits and pieces in black and white.
On page 20 she wore a floral robe

Edgar Pesach, the obituary writer, is on the roof of the Lincoln Plaza
Apartments. It is a deep autumn Sukkoth night.
The Philharmonic plays tonight—Boccherini, or Brahms?

The word for childish greed
in Armenian is the same
as for an eye with a hole.

Two muscle men stand face to face
in a large field and begin an Olympic insult contest.

The sky is blue and gold like a Swedish flag

When Dionysus and Apollo met,
the gods were angry (the goddesses were sleeping)
that two such equals and such opposites

My nephew stands at the door. I pretend to be
asleep but it’s no use. “Uncle,” he calls and I
feel that identity wrenched out of my tired nerves.

I watch a feeble man in over-large clothes sliding his feet
                across the terrazzo floor of the concourse, each foot
                no more than four inches. The slip, slip on the brown

“We say stone has a memory,’’ Rodney says.

Three cars, and I’ve lived with
twice that many women.

Henut and Judy sucking lollipops
are the room’s only furnishing.