Elephant Song
On evenings filled with rain the elephants
believe my open door leads to a green stretch
of forest and trundle through.
Each concocts a song or howl of her own—
a moan of bassoon, a pitch of piccolos
and even agonies of strings to tell of elephant
tragedies coated in silt.
Walk
He left all his sticks. Which he should regret because they are his life’s work, but he needed his hands free to open and close doors and be ready to ward off Antoinette if necessary, which was not necessary, and his hands are not hands that are adept at juggling. Instead of regretting his sticks, he is happy he left them.
A Dumb Place
In retrospect, agreeing Mary’s suggestion had not been a particularly bright idea. And she now realized the idea was never hers in the first place. In the past three hours Brenda had gone over the sequence of events and was now fully aware of how her young charge had manipulated her into her current predicament.
The Church of Nonexistence
The pamphlet-that-does-not-exist is in my hand! This is the pamphlet of my church: The Church of Nonexistence. We worship the God of Nonexistence.
Choose Life
Choose life until your last breath.
Choose life until you hear the Other calling.
Choose life while the lights are on and your eyes still focus.
Choose life while your heart beats out your days.
Choose life while your mind still has questions.
Choose life until you must, for intensely personal reasons,
Choose death.
The Black Christian
Blacken trod the rain splashed souls,
Amber throbs the heart within.
Modernistic troubadour,
Opener of darkened doors.
Filling Space
Simon always felt that he grew up among giants and geniuses, as if he were a reverse-superman sent from a small and mild planet.
Nobody Knew
Nobody knew the things about you that I knew. I knew where you were that time when you called and asked if I knew where you were. I said I didn’t, but I did. The connection was good enough that I didn’t even have to pretend it sounded like a local call and not like a call from London.
I’ll Be
Jimmy Brewster’s hands were pulsating with steely warmth the day he woke up dead.
Spine of a Dog
Spine of a dog curves away from me and against, as heat
of a tired dog warms my skin through my sweater, through his fur.
He lies, front paws matched, chin tucked alongside them, neat.
One still beast; one, antsy with pen at arm’s end, cramming
the months and years and lives with rehearsals, games, dinners—
human scrawl.
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