There are real tigers in that jungle,
But I walked through it and came out alive.
My skin is tougher now where they clawed me.

Sinking my teeth deep into you,
I feel no guilt.
You knew I was coming.

Even though
You've written home to Nancy
Clear-headed, twice this week

The first time we ever quarreled
You were cutting an onion
In the kitchen of our rented cottage.

The frame of the house he lived in
supplied the wood for the gallows.
The floors where he walked were folded

At first light there are voices.
On the landing we can see
the parts on their heads.

Where I went to college in the purple valley of northwest Massachusetts, there was a fellow in my class who used to drag a brick around by a string. He called it his “pet brick.”

Uncle Gabe is a thoughtful man. We were out Christmas shopping together this season, & as I walked by a department store jammed with Yuletide shoppers, I saw the most remarkable woman waiting for a bus. She was splendid. Blonde, blue eyes, long legs, perfectly developed breasts...

I sit by the window all morning
watching the planes make final approaches.
Each of them gathers and steadies itself

Confused sentences sweep across
the windshield. Then nothing but white
commas exploding out of the night’s