Something to drink helps, of course, and humor must live
even on that dark corner where once
your life was threatened. Something in the voice, in the telling,
must signal I am safe now and am trying

It was a year of pirates in speedboats,
anonymous bullies spreading privacies
on the Internet, and the worst of them

When it comes to the underworld
and the fragility of guesswork, 
what makes us think the dead 

The door had a double lock, 
and the joke was on me. 
You might call it protection 

He disappeared, often, even as he was speaking,
though he could finish those sentences
from which he had disengaged himself,

Down from the mountains of Appalachia
and the highs of new love
I’ve come across the extended monotonies

We knew he was dead
because the dead don’t smile
unless someone works hard

She was thinking it was time
to be naked again, to take something off

There came a time when she found pleasure
in saying the word pussy, alert to see whom it shocked

My neighbor was a biker, a pusher, a dog
    and wife beater.
In bad dreams I killed him