“When I lost the woman I loved, I knew it was because she was afraid of me. I saw it in her eyes… the fear….”
This was how I began my first ever face-to-face colloquy with my first ever and only psychotherapist at forty-six years of age. She thought I was talking about my wife from whom I was recently separated.

Late one night, dangerously late, at that hour when stillness and darkness cloak the sleepless, and when an aching heart silences reason, Angie posted to Twitter.
The days are long, the nights are cold. I miss you, still.
As a rule, Angie does not speak from the heart, not in writing, and certainly not on social media, which she largely disdains. She’s a scholar.

Clipped to a rope line at the summit of Dufourspitze, Deidre Moon was on top of the world. The panoramic view unfolded beneath a sapphire sky. An amphitheater of four-thousand-meter peaks poked through a swirl of clouds. Italy to the south, the Matterhorn to the west.

The warehouses lining the arrival and departure lanes of the space port are constructed out of red brick instead of the traditional glass and steel common to the colony of New Guadeloupe. They tower high above Leif, as he dashes in between them through an alleyway. Surely, he cannot keep this tempo up for much longer.

“Put lice on pillow,” Anan said. “Efa woman annoy you, put lice on pillow. Dat’s how you break da connection.”
Anan and I were sitting on a bench on the quay by the St. Laurence River.
“Is that an old country adage?”
“I don’t know dis word, adage. You want get rid of da old lady, put lice on pillow. Next you know, she kick you out.”

They were circling again, their leathery wings flapping slowly, noiselessly. Through a small square window lodged high in a stone wall of my cottage, I could see a large gargoyle passing just in front of me, so close that I could have touched its gray, scaly hide or wrapped my fingers around its slender neck if not for the barrier between us.

I was not alone. Every resident I knew had toyed with giving up. Even though I was several years older than the others it was still, sometimes, simply too much: the workload, the hostile or uncooperative patients, the long hours, the smug attending physician who, even at this juncture of our education, conveyed the impression that if we so much as considered quitting, maybe we should.

Edward and Marcia had got into the habit of walking along the cliff-top at dusk. What, here on Auskerry, Edward was tempted to call the gloaming. The sultry day was much cooler now and, indeed, would soon be cold. At this latitude the summer sky was still pale, but the first stars could already be made out. Marcia had something she wanted to tell Edward and Edward did not want to hear it.

Please don’t be dead.
Yet June knows the words in her head are hollow. Insubstantial. He has either done it right this time, or he hasn’t, and she can’t do shit about it if it’s the former. She hates it in here. She and Johnny always joked that the hospital’s waiting room was like depression cramped into airless chemical space. It makes her want to retch. As if she is looking into a glass of curdled milk and knows she has no choice but to gulp the lumps down.

The baby boy comet will need a new kidney one day.
Robot cat understands found objects become body parts.
Eyes as stars watch this womb of bountiful fruit.

His birth among biospheres—containers of blue, green,
and orange leaves falling like tears. Later, waves of salad
and feathers toss the young child. He recovers and stands

My camp counselor spoke of Charlie
as if he was sitting there
next to us at the bonfire,
the orange flames flickering across her face.
and transforming
a teenage girl,
into a gruesome jack-o-lantern.

Did you know? Nature
sprang fully formed from the furrowed brow
of Man at the moment he wiped
the smog from the glass and saw
mirrored the long tilt-angled slide
follow, ineluctable, the set-piece denouement
of wild ranges on his barren scalp;

Doesn’t myth belong to everyone? I have two tios and they
are barely older than me and mi hermano. One is four years older,
the other six and when we lived together in my grandparents’ house
in Douglas Arizona they would take us for long walks, sometimes at
night and tell mi hermano and yo about la Llorona.

Ten minutes out of the harbor and already
Someone sights the singular spray that means
We are in their presence. We line the railing
Ready to take communion.

Two young fin whales swimming shallow
Like some cosmic dance, arch breathe dive
Spray spume shine all grace
And the gladness rises in me

The Buddha teaches
Cessation of desires as
The key to Nirvana.
Life is like a wheel
Spinning on many levels,
Toward Nirvana,
Or like an old, but
Fast moving merry-go-round.
Spinning, spinning.

The sun is not shining at 3am when the phone rings
and I hear the doctor cut your cord to my dreams,
offering no suture, no receiving blanket.
The sun is working somewhere
dictating time with truth or dare while you are falling;
even the moon is hiding.

July 15, 1954. Duckett, Louisiana.
The waves crashed against the dock of Hangman’s Bay, sloshing water on its rickety edge. The sun had long gone down and now all that lit the way was a small star off in the horizon. Luellen Temperance and Tessie Sinclair screeched in freed delight as they ran faster than their ten-year-old legs could carry them.

It wasn’t until the fourth or fifth time she played Iris’ voicemail that it dawned on Satya just how long she had gone without leaving her narrow slice of South Ealing Road. It took several more times before the full meaning of it sank in.
Satya…I know you probably don’t want to talk, but this is not just your daily motivational, so please listen to me: I just got out of Waterloo Station. Simon isn’t there anymore. They’ve replaced him with someone new. I’m sorry, but I thought you should know.

My eyes, now watered by regret, find little pleasure sketching. The last time I tried, my fountain pen punctured my drawing sending tears of black ink streaming down the page. I must tell this story without the forgiveness of an artist’s eye that sees only what it wants.

The young man working the two-pump gas station at the corner of Main and 443 stopped a black minivan with an upraised hand so he could fill Annie’s gas can. His narrow face and weak chin gave him away as a Scanlan, but she had no idea which one. Mickey? Eddie? Tommy? Or was he old enough to be Mick, Ed or Tom? He lifted weights and was cock-proud of his broad chest and thick biceps, one of which was tagged with an eagle tattoo, a screaming patriotic bird of prey, talons extended. He looked at her sideways as he eased the nozzle into the can.

Tonight, the typewriter keys slam rhythm
to ease coarse electricity under the skin.
The Sister of the Sacred Heart pleads alms
and sweats under her habit
as angels stride thickly east and west on her sidewalk.
Angels fly complex patterns
over the drunk anesthesiologist and the beautiful child.

Are you one who beats her heart
With fists of rosemarys plucked
from your battered chest now
crushed in fragrant shards by
the throbbing, moaning,
ruing refrain

Ruby’s last dress
is the color of desert flowers
after a late spring monsoon,
purple pops on barrel cactus, pink of prickly pears,
pleated across a canvas of rock-damp sand.

1. A Formal Affair
In Cambridge, English bone china.
A floral pot of black tea.
Delicate cups with saucers.
A bit of milk.
Fine linen.
Lace napkins.