The first time I saw Lucille after she died, she told me, “You better find someone new, Harlan, or you’ll be lonely.”
Death Sure Changes a Person
This Is the World We Live in Tomorrow
Before you enter this run-
down house, drink caffeine.
As you approach,
ignore baseball-busted
window on second floor—
you’ll never leave first. Follow
creaky path down dank hall
to third door, the only room
with blue lights dimmed. Take
a seat before the console
of your choice. Start to play
don’t stop. Don’t eat. Don’t
sleep. Let time escape
like the caged bird
from my bedroom,
the last heart-beating thing
touched by anyone
who’s ever come here.
Why Write? Eating Fugu: Getting Texts Completed Despite Local Commotion
It’s not such a wonderful idea to try to prove one’s machismo by eating fugu, i.e. puffer fish, or by lining one’s pockets with the profits of such sales. Firing M-16s on a military base, likewise, can cause harm. More detrimental to one’s well-being, though, is blasting music in an apartment in which a Mama Writer is trying to compose a text.
Unacceptable Conventions
Before she died, Dr. Candice Mittleton, an employee of Friendly Morgues Inc., the body storage facility that is associated, somewhat loosely, with Upper Valley Hospital, was habituated to addressing me as someone many years her junior. She acted in that manner despite the fact that I was her boss and despite the fact that I was decades older. Even when a mutual colleague, Seth Huffington, publicly protested that behavior, Dr. Mittleton responded to his remonstration with laughter.
After Dark
Steel on stone
Hydraulic hammers
Artillery like
Shake the ground,
Pulverising
Architecture
Of past decades
Too expensive
For renovation,
Too difficult
Infidelity: A Nightmare
The wife did shrill
toneless wail
some faceless image
We talked of breastfeeding
and when the milk was gone
a red water came through