My little wife suggested that I tell you this story / because she received such pleasure from it, / and I such pleasure in the telling.

O fate, O sad duty, / O mankind, O life, what does it mean?

Eric Dolphy can’t wake up:
the green light’s still burning
by the gate. Pine cones

The fog comes in, flatter
than ever. The air, apparently

is blue somewhere, not here.

Charles Lindbergh never danced with Ginger Rogers.
He wasn’t a comedian even though he was
from Detroit. You’d see him

Midwinter night,
     Clark & Halstead brushed with this week’s snow
     grill lights blinking at the corner

I like breathing better than work
but strange is the meat
when it is yanked out of the sky

The smell of snow, stinging in nostrils as the wind lifts it from a beach
Eye-shuttering, mixed with sand, or when snow lies under the street lamps and on all

A thin brown stain 
down the white brick wall 
I guess yes 

The sky is pitiless. I beg
your pardon? OK then
the sky is pitted. The yard