You sleep in the darkness, you with the back I love & the gift of sleeping through my noisy nights of poetry. I have taken other men into my tho…

The lessons we learned here (fumbling with our lunchbags, handkerchiefs & secret cheeks of bubblegum) were graver than any

I am not interested in my body– the part that stinks & rots & brings forth life,

Old bag of bones upside down, what are you searching for in poetry, in meditation?

She was not a slender woman, but her skin was milk mixed in with strawberry jam & between her legs the word pu… & her hair was the color of wh…

The man under the bed The man who has been there for yea… The man who waits for my floating… The man who is silent as dustballs… The man whose breath is the breath…

After the college reading, the eager students gather. They ask me

After the first astounding rush, after the weeks at the lake, the crystal, the clouds, the water… the snow breaking under our boots… & the long mornings in bed. .…

Regret is the young girl who sits… & stares at her hands. They are bluer than shadows in sno… They are bloodless as fear. Her fingernail moons are white.

Now, moving in, cartons on the flo… the radio playing to bare walls, picture hooks left stranded in the unsoiled squares where pain… and something reminding us

This is the dirty laundry poem– because we have traveled from town… accumulating soiled linen & sw… & blue-jeans caked & clott… & teeshirts crumpled by our gl…

The man giving birth in the dark has died & come back to life again, is stretching out his arms

I want to understand the steep thi… that climbs ladders in your throat… I can’t make sense of you. Everywhere I look you’re there— a vast landmark, a volcano

On line at the supermarket waiting for the tally, the blue numerals tattooed on the white skins