preferring not to unround his bubble
of self against the else
         of another

Probably easier to be dead in the city,
she opined, but also easier to be alive

take them with a grain of salt. Sincerity
remember is in the mind of the beholder

Snoozes may bowl a dream or two, but no strikes. I prefer
the sensual contours of the bridge off there—
how like your thigh. But after all it’s only a bridge

But mountains shift their pilings, shafts
of rock dust hovering
         in hacked-out pockets, in lungs,

Thesis: That each of his fingers is a page
from a water-sodden book—the meanings
delicate, on the verge of being torn apart,

When night comes the babies scamper into their burrows,
deep under a moonscape of white plains.

Venus is rising. She’s muttering,
A sober chick is a sullen trick.

Oh, not that you don’t smile: in paint, you do.
How often pranks and cracks paid off the gloom!

Gently summoned, Joseph came. My robe lay open. And?
   He shut his eyes!