Nothing will budge it. Not hot water. Not detergent. Not scraping with a steak knife. It stands firm—a thick, chalky scum blanketing the glass-bottom, glowering threats of foul taste and disease.

While asleep, a man gives birth to an idea of a woman. He wakes and finds it curled comfortably against him.

February on the narrow beach, 3:00
a.m. I set out south. Cape Cod Light
on its crumbling cliff above me turns

I don’t care if nobody
under forty can hang a door
properly. I’m six and I’m bored.

Are you looking for me? I am in the next seat!
My shoulder is against yours.

The great doors remain closed, but the spring fragrance
is inside anyway

“Alas,” he thinks, “a perfect day for a walk.”
But first he steps outside to take a look.

At the party: they surround him and his chair.

“So it was in the morning, then,
that you first put this hat on your knees?”

no thank you I don’t want to spend my life
giving extreme unction to a crowd of toads

Come on, let's conjure up
something really horrible:
What would you most hate