danced and wobbled ‘know that tea’ intrusion and alarm charming kiss-curls something caustic and laughable   big cropped head without fault a special cup and saucer kisses and calm dinners a woman who has read Spenser without love, I will tell you to the pines, to the mushrooms covered his face with a handkerchief  (…)

taking what he wanted better now me for a time ‘apart from my hate’   move from typewriter to typewriter thrust then customary gentle trot cold grey eyes pub bull   the kitten Blackie

anything alive grip each rib people in ice age knew into the Bering Sea no breaks or blood how many firsts kelp is only ice stone bone amber   these bones eleven rocks head deep in till wet from birth   a dangerous Eden islands and sinkholes claws or horns every other invasive pig  

heavy with insignificance cobweb of fake thoughts their mutton am done for   fled on up if he were only clean half-heroic men her little soft hand indignation passed unnoticed he nursed scent of rose leaves least selfish moment spit you a man sinking   pin one into her heart

used to be could forgive everything smoke with a friend the gift of self-assertion as the Viceroy said   more than a sister loafing up so happily unhappy   alone in the jungle better men   about worms

After Darin Elliot (my collaborator on Elephant in the Living Room, whose bright new solo publication Elephant in the Shadows was featured in a recent posting), and I quarantined together for more than ten weeks, he moved on (to upstate New York, then to Boston) for a couple of months but returned in September for(…)

‘wake up Philip” after breakfast   arid and precipitous lies were beautiful   something must be done   at the outside embarrassed but gallant such perfect French stick funnily two tall girls   only twenty-nine   ‘I hate English life’   native insistence   how little done