Category: Book o’ Verse

  • Dink

    Waiting outside the theater
    --dink.
    his mother's umbrella opened
    accidentally
    into the backside
    of his buzz-cut head.
    --dink.
    --dink.
    He blinked.
    He tightened.
      --dink.
  • North Beach, San Francisco

    summer midnight
    in the city
    and
    the bridesmaid
    just walked past
    without her shoes on.
  • Brown hair

    It's a
    young man's
    game.
  • Advice for Travellers

    Never chew
    gum in an
    airplane bathroom.
    Because if you do
    your gum will taste
    like an airplane bathroom.

  • They’re chatting

    they're chatting
    in front of the register
    lit softly   by streetlight
    and if you only saw
    the look on his face
    her back   to you
       her hands
    on   her hips
         straight black hair
    sliding over
         casual
    tilt
       you'd never guess 
    she was an
    eighty-year-old widow.
  • Order, two drinks:

    espresso, green tea.
    I mean, seriously.
    How much
    more
    married
    can you be?
  • Sunday, Midtown

    Trying to cover
    the three of us
    with one umbrella.
    My naked hand out for a cab
    full-body soaked as that
    car roared by 
    and I was wet and cold and pissed.
    Then giving up
    counting our change
    to catch the crosstown bus
    climbing onboard
    paying our fare
    and me
       surprised to find it
    half-empty in the rain.
  • Three-year-old salmon

    Yesterday
    I really let him jump on me
    let him throw himself into me
    like some red-headed salmon
    and me the current
    his feet slapping the waves.
    He was laughing, slap-laughing
    and flying, slap-flying.
    And then I was the sand
    and he was the ocean
    and he stretched me apart and he wore me down
    and he sent me
    streaming
    out to
    sea.

  • He talks

    He talks in a low hum
    with no air between the words.
    He fills all the space.
    He fills all the space.
    Hefillsallthespace.
    He’s like crickets.

  • Lunchbreak

    He sat down sobbing
    into his hands.
    50 cents
    and he wanted them
    to give him a dollar for it.
    Retarded. “I hate math.”
    And I just wanted to have lunch.
    Then he stood, bearded
    burly Thor
    retarded.
    “I hate math!” again
    looking back
    through his beard
    over one thick shoulder.
    And he thundered off.