when veronica drove into the back of our ford escort
the sound made the night sky turn white,
all the leaves, newly summered, fell from their trees,
the damp air suffused with gin, scorched rubber, regret
and the moon laid the shore to rest.

inside, children running gleefully around
in a drama of their own, of innocuous cruelty,
in an instant were scattered wildly,
shook to the ground dead

while the adults, savoring wine and
chunks of pineapple and cheddar cheese on cocktail sticks
felt a momentary prick of years gone by,
of bromelain tenderizing mouths.

but i am safe,
having concealed myself behind this emerald-ruby satin,
a floor-length curtain collected in some dusty, forgotten corner of the house,
the taste of rainbow sprinkles and hot tears still on my tongue,
and i wonder
did i create this madness from inside here,
like the wizard of oz
while i was longing to be home?

. . . . in which i am visiting a small island off the coast of hythe called kokoalka. it is a also a mountain. for reasons that are not clear i am hanging from some macramé attached to a skylight window over an abyss which i believe to have been knotted by my father. i feel secure in this knowledge even though my situation is dire, and i am eventually able to climb free, though the window feels impossibly narrow. i am now to ride in a cycling tournament but i have no shoes. i go to the store but am frustrated by the service . . . they do not seem to understand the urgency of my request because the tournament is already underway . . . .

i am growing into myself

C - He - Mc - Al - Li:
unaltered

walking past, i check my ass out in the mirror
looking full and flowing
and i think: i love you,
for the first time.

. . . . in which i am painting with sophie . . . though she has demonstrated that she can create images that are exquisitely detailed and austerely beautiful, she chooses nonetheless to paint with large, cumbersome tools as if designed for a toddler . . . she creates an abstract image with broad washes of colors, suggesting pinks, yellows, turquoise . . . i am trying to paint and realize that i have painted over one of her drawings of the former kind and am struck with guilt . . . .

. . . . in which i am going with a team of people to gather some mysterious, clear liquid that comes out of the ground . . . there are four of us - sam, myself, a baby and a man without a face . . . sam performs the task while the rest of us gather around . . . the liquid comes from a pipe on the sidewalk, like a tiny brass fire hydrant, and a nut must be unscrewed in order to get at what is inside . . . sam does this as i advise him on the best way to get this done . . . it comes off and the clear liquid spills slowly out onto the ground . . . sam has brought a laboratory flask and begins to capture some of it . . . while we are waiting the baby plays in a pool of the liquid and we pause to consider if it is safe for them to do so . . . nobody knows the properties of the liquid, which could otherwise be water, that we are collecting . . . .

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