Ten Stories

                                                               Never once
heard her sing
or maybe                                               she was singing

                                                               the whole

time.
                                                               My best magic

                                                               was time.
                                                               In the years

between us                                           I specialized in gloom
devotion.                                              On the beach one

day I dug up                                          a clam with a crab inside.
 

Work

I ran in the halls

for days. For myself

I reached into a phone

and I was with things

I have only seen

in movies. For instance

how to with nails.

The beard I wore

could be worn in seven

ways. The company I kept

kept me hungry even as I grew

less tender. Most of my time

I wasted obsessing over some

settled matter like a cellar

in a cornfield where I sought

something implausible

with the thought that your life

would sour after you tasted

mine awhile. Eventually

every new leaf was lacerating.

I couldn’t help feeling

like a man who’d disappeared

again for hours at the quarry

holding his own

dog down by its throat.
 

Litany for Deliverance

O Lord, meek and humble, hear me.
From the desire to be loved, deliver us.
From the fear of being suspected, deliver us.
From sleep like ice harvesting, deliver us.
The warranty says, deliver us.
From hush money, deliver us.
From responsibility, deliver us.
Like shocking the pool, deliver us.
And the laundry Lord, deliver us.
Did not your affection, deliver us.
From seeing how, deliver us.
Every happiness is proportionate, deliver us.
To the fuss it takes, deliver us.
From moods of attachment, deliver us.
From anticipation of loss, deliver us.
From flammable cushions, deliver us.
From pitch on our hands, deliver us.
Which reminds us of blindness, deliver us.
From the fear of blindness, deliver us.
From who to search for, deliver us.
When no one is missing, deliver us.
When no one is looking, deliver us.
From Kentucky, deliver us.
From slow disaster, deliver us.
Like lava, deliver us.
While I wait here, deliver us.
With the weirdest troubles, deliver us.
From the side not receiving your sunlight, deliver us.
From the side of excessive light, deliver us.
From excess, deliver us.
From the bread Lord, deliver us.
And pantry moths, deliver us.
From violent outbursts, deliver us.
From thinking too much about our childhood, deliver us.
From arrogance, deliver us.
From impulse, deliver us.
And the notion, deliver us.
That your forgiveness, deliver us.
The feeling, deliver us.
That your divine finger, deliver us.
Is pointed directly at us, deliver us.