I sat at my desk and contemplated all that I had accomplished
this year. I had won the hot dog eating contest on Rhode Island.
No, I hadn’t. I was just kidding. I was the arm wrestling champion

I wish somebody would give me
a couple of live panda bears.
After all these years I deserve them.

The illusion of total competence traps 
Drunks and other scientists trying 
Any old bottle that catches their eye. 

Who will meet her?
sitting ahead of me,
her face a crushed girlskin,

The sisters are waiting
in the trophy room: Belinda
and Ducky, The morning

Sometimes I am so lonely the phone
will do.
Sometimes I am so lonely and you are not
dead, you

The underworld the bright brochures have shown
declines our courtesy. The rare albino fish
wait in the falls, and the blind salamanders,
ignoring camera flashes, sulk in cracks.

Spoiler alert: Jean Stafford, in her
all-but-out-of-print masterwork

It was not unlike a raccoon
when I found it by the highway.
Clearly it was special,

As if in answer to a primordial urge,
I longed for something
to which to