Practical hats and shoes. Industrial carpet. Fog. No children. Southern Chinese. Leg exercises. Men in oxfords. Liberal businessmen. Other times I've been here, through there.

The next station is the battlefield of Troy
It is the birthplace of Mao
It is the field where Armageddon was.
Imagine! There was something before this.
And this. I am in a forest academy. The groves
were God's first temples etc. "The vivid stamp
of personal mystical experience."

We usually

Everyday wake up before we want to and

nausea gratitude

for dreams--- anxiety processed. It's still dark.

Wake up for abstract things.

Head. Feet. But we're awake

and no beloved woke us up.

Hugs which avoid direct breast contact, how my favorite people encourage a kind of social weirdness in me. Strong feelings of being a turnip.

When you leave your bearable job and intelligent, creative, attractive lover, remember that there really isn't anything better than this. This is all that there is, always.

It's important to not believe in a lamp burning for you or anyone in a window somewhere.

I know that no one will call me home.

The male finch notes us and calls to the hatchlings. You're a car and I'm a goat. He pauses. A child is a strange thing to want. That's a nice person, we don't say that. I told my students the joke about the chicken and the road, and they stared at me. "I see," said one. "The question is strange but the answer is serious. It is funny."

"Oh, Hi!" he said, happy and startled. Then, he stared into ceiling space without speaking.

I introduced myself to the woman next to me. "Hello," I said enthusiastically. "I am likely to never see you again."

The wealthy community by the sea is far enough off the highway to be difficult to get to but still defined by the highway.

I ask if they have any mastic. Mastic, she says, is an Arabic thing. I say yes, I know, I want to use it in pudding, and you have a sign that says "Yes! We have MASTIC!"

Mention the rain. Your carnations are probably from around here. A cousin of your friend was shot in the head by her boyfriend. That reminds me of someone I knew from Maine.

Universities don't create communities, Lorraine.

She wants her daughter to look good, too.

Sometimes I think I can hear the waves from here, Mark says. I can hear them, I say, and we both write some version of the dialogue in our note books.

I was doing a fine job impersonating
your sister or your brother, and I
blend in well with others, except that
you noticed I was slightly weird
and have oddly unfocused, dreamy
eyes.

You had no choice, you thought about
how you used to never get sick and how
you used to communicate with everything.

You miss the lake you used to roll up
and unroll, depending on your needs.

Another fallen angel whose primary interest is
in stealing women.

Also, he's tall and lives in a cave.

Men lock up their wives in windowless
rooms, but he abducts them anyway.
Or, men take their wives to him hoping
he'll steal them. Some women might
have gone to him on their own.

The cool kids watched The Crow,
excited about rape, revenge, and death.
"We are going to rape you now," my
friends said. Then they picked me up
and carried me from the kitchen to
the living room, where we ate popcorn.

I want a world in which my love for Lester the parrot could be more central.

That we have worked hard
to have a personal style. Listen
to your voice and say "Oh my God.
That's my voice."

You should cry now.

Because I slipped in the bathtub.
And couldn't find my mic.
It was exciting. And confusing.