We flew through a thunderstorm on our way into
Pittsburgh, landing without incident, but a hailstorm
           descended, delaying our bags.

Yesterday in the locker room
a young man told his friend
how he did it to her

He was always so interestingly wrong.
I loved him, in fact for years couldn’t live
without him, he who helped crystallize

The dolphin was all undulation,
riding its whims and churning 
the ocean, dorsal fin and bottlenose

If you, X, take this woman, Y
and if you, Y, take this man, X,
you two who have taken each other

If a lone feather fell from the sky,
like a paper plane wafting down
from a tree house where a quiet boy

Something to drink helps, of course, and humor must live
even on that dark corner where once
your life was threatened. Something in the voice, in the telling,
must signal I am safe now and am trying

It was a year of pirates in speedboats,
anonymous bullies spreading privacies
on the Internet, and the worst of them

When it comes to the underworld
and the fragility of guesswork, 
what makes us think the dead 

The door had a double lock, 
and the joke was on me. 
You might call it protection