I finally broke down and opened the shoebox
which arrived just weeks after my father died.
All winter I had put it out of sight on top

The old man is back.
The house reeks of bacon.
The Jews next door

I am never lonely and never bored. Except when I bore myself, which is my definition of loneliness—to bore oneself. It makes a body lonesome, that.

Oh my god, it’s Paris by moonlight
Even the trees are drunk and walking

It was a dangerous day.
The earth was shining

We have a house. There is a roof and there are windows. I think they are square. You can see through them, that’s for sure. There is a door to go into and out of the house. It works both ways. And oh, a floor.

Everyone in the world,
whatever their disposition,
seemed to be crying at once

I cannot change them,
I am told by you people
who apply the rule of leopards

Soon I will become an elephant.
My ears will grow and begin to droop.
They will turn grey and floppy.

Within oral slum,
Mr. Illusion-Thaw
wilts humor-nail.