you are here the southern tip of roosevelt island east river easing by to either side beside your wife astride the bikes you rode like phantoms through the hushed streets of queens over the red bridge at 36th ave you...  read

stubbed-out cigarette moldering wet in the sink on the Paris train ...  read

The sidewalk trees drop their skirts of dirty snow for a silver-tongued winter rain, exposing a careless mulch of cigarettes butts, not to mention the occasional dog turd and chicken bone. Nothing better to do, trees, than eat, shit, and...  read

This morning, with a high of seventy degrees in the forecast, amazing for a November in Chicago, I drove the dog to Warren Park. That's where we go for a special treat instead of our usual neighborhood walk, because the...  read

I make it my general practice not to drink and write. At least, I try not to drink when writing fiction, where the prose should be clear and lucid as water, even as it refracts the light. But poetry's a...  read

Squirrels chasing each Other up and around trees Like on Benny Hill ...  read

I have no illusions of immortality Or do I? The way I shovel known poisons into my mouth Shout motherfucker at drivers who cut me off The way I still haven't put up the smoke alarms, two years later The...  read

Earlier from the second-story deck I caught a glimpse of the gate slamming shut as Ella chased someone out of the yard. Her wild barking was what had summoned me. The thunk of something landing solidly on the wooden deck...  read

sleeping puppy feet pressed against my human toes twitch in doggish dreams ...  read

Snowflakes ride updrafts in Brownian reels outside my twelfth-floor window. ...  read