One final fall of sun slips past the ridge
behind my shoulder, coats the upper limbs 

I put the bacon into the pan.

It lies there, lank and perfectly relaxed.

“We say stone has a memory,’’ Rodney says.

Three cars, and I’ve lived with
twice that many women.

The professors with their words.
the secretaries with their papers
and the service people with their labor

“Uh.” Wayman says. “I think my car has been stolen.”
Well, the voice demands, has it been stolen
or hasn’t it? “I guess it has.’” Wayman says.

Rapunzel had her hair. All she had
was a phone she couldn't dial out on
and a second set of sheets—twin-sized

there’s a stink somewhere. One day the cat has sprayed your bookcase. Or the sewer’s backed up. Or the Thai woman downstairs is cooking rancid fish.

Then there is the question, how to disrobe for swimming? For if a girl simply strips naked, she is immodest. If she takes off some clothes but leaves on others, she is still undressing, still immodest, her body motions sure to spawn lewd

Remember how we’d gape at those g-strings and pasties, and giggle and yell and leave blue-balled and pretending not to be?