I close my eyes like a good little… as I was told to do by my mother w… and before bed I brush my teeth an… as I was told, and look forward to… I do all things required of me to…

As I reach to close each book lying open on my desk, it leaps up to snap at my fingers. My legs won’t hold me, I must sit down. My fingers pain me

at fifty I approach myself, eighteen years of age, seated despondently on the concret… of my father’s house, wishing to be gone from there

The steam hammer pounds with a reg… Neither the hammer nor the steel s… terrible meeting between them, pro… that some things must be done, reg… cost too is absorbed in the doing…

As she walked she would look back over her shoulder and trip upon sidewalk cracks or bump into people to whom she would apol… profusely, her head still turned.

I stand and listen, head bowed, to my inner complaint. Persons passing by think I am searching for a lost coin. You’re fired, I yell inside

I have something to tell you. I’m listening. I’m dying. I’m sorry to hear. I’m growing old.

Earth hard to my heels bear me up like a child standing on its mother’s belly. I am a surprised guest to the air

If we could be brought to the surf… like a gleaming fish and served fo… if we could eat and swallow our ow… to make a good meal, if we could g… for ourselves and feed on the glea…

Here in bed behind a brick wall I can make order and meaning, but how do I begin? How do I emerge without panic to the sounds and mass

I am looking for a past I can rely on in order to look to death with equanimity. What was given me:

As I enter the theatre the play i… I hear the father say to the son o… You’€™ve taken the motor apart. The son replies, The roof is leak… The father retorts, The tire is f…

Finally, to forgo love is to kiss… is to let rain fall nakedly upon y… is to respect fire, is to study man’s eyes and his ges… as he talks,

I stopped to pick up the bagel rolling away in the wind, annoyed with myself for having dropped it as if it were a portent.

This tree has two million and seve… Perhaps I missed a leaf or two bu… at having persisted in counting by… and marked down on paper with penc… Adding them up was a pleasure I c…