THE MUSEYou owe me. Pay up. According to my accounts, you have...
CASUAL FRIENDSend lies to the people listed below....
THE AWARDS COMMITTEEThis is to notify you that--but what's the use?...
THE WISEThe world could fall to pieces with no notice....
UNCLE ALA chicken is a touchy creature....
THE OTHERSHere where we live the lines are down and the surprises build into snowbanks...
DANNYDusty Clinton Township kids making paper roosters and snowball...
SAMUEL RENSBERGER I am your grandfather's grandfather and through my wakeless sleep I dream...
OLD NEIGHBOREast across low muddy fields and behind the screening trees you can see...
THE WORM COUNCILWe call your attention to worms. Though sweeping ice age disaster...
THE HERONI flew in down by the round deep pond behind your house...
WITNESSI saw the largest moon ever rise huge bright yellow, sailing where it cared to...
Dear Eric,
I was just enough bigger that I could wrestle you into the clean
straw of the mow. I remember the way I pushed my weight and muscle
against yours, and the mixed feeling of straw, soft as a couch but
able to scratch, or even to stab.
The smell of straw, and barns with the living sounds of animals,
and heavy cotton clothes, and high-raftered spaces with shadows
big as a tent were parts of a world familiar to me. I was my
natural self there, beyond denying.
It was a boy's fire that burned in me then, to subdue you. We
twisted and rolled, and my shoulders clashed with yours. My hands
got free, and I groped to get hold of the thing in you that made
your eyes dark. That was what I was wrestling for, maybe, all
along: your enigma, the part of you that retreated and slid away,
or when cornered said no no no.
You Know Who