Their pupils are sunken synagogues
They huddle around the grave,
beneath sycamore branches

He’s come to the beginning of the end
Of the poem, the moment when he turns
To place the first of its words on paper.

Ellen and I Go Back—at least as far
as her pre-op days when she was still a man
and minced each midnight through the local bar.

rejoice, in fact,
over the quiet self-complacence of the toaster.

In the country, a dog is as free as a roach

“The figure should be natural and relaxed,”
   asserted Mucha to his drawing class,

Never was there a time when I did not lead him,
when I did not feel his hand upon my shoulder.

“I couldn’t think of taking
anything that was whole.”

One morning I awoke
to a dead pigeon on the roof
of the building next to mine,

Afterwards I said the palm tree was like a snake
coiling around the delicate outdoor bannister
but Janette said like a swan courting a swan.