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Condemned to an easy life balanced on the suffering in another land.

Salt provokes, tenderizes. Your wounds, your dinner.

Is anybody out there? Nobody answered, and I felt archaic as prayer.

Is that coffee you have, or the hell of fusion in your cupped hands?

The pen is mightier than the sword in the fretwork of a poet’s language.

“Leaving for war, Hayes wept. He didn’t just cry; he wept...”

But we do despise beauty. We connect it with softness and immortality.

Charlie wasn’t Lena’s first love, but he counted on being her last.

“Oh, Jesus.” It’s the greatest shame since 1929’s stock market.

Everyone they pass is consumed by some desperate interior story.

My father challenged us to a free-throw shooting contest.

My mother’s house was packed, painted, put up for sale—sold.

Help me, please help me, is the beggar’s refrain on the F train today.

Now he chuckles with the sea, stitched within its timeless jive.

Yes, Eylon thought, he lied to Cath. Lied about his day, about the risks.

He has his hands on Nii’s throat, and this time I do not stop them.

“I don’t care how tired we are. I’m not not having sex on my wedding night.”

“The kiels take extra time, but then you know your meats. Questions?”

The first murder had been a half dozen years ago in a warmer city.

A dead body leaned sideways against a wall. Its eyes were open.

One of us broke away, cooled, and died, having never fully lived.

Ajax can answer all this killing only with the killing of himself.

Slice a finger while opening a beer can, fizz the gin high in tumblers.

We press closer to look at a picture: a handcuffed boy leaning toward us.

Let him search, Tricia thought, who knew what he might discover.

He was alongside without preamble. Elephants are not stealthy by nature.

Histories we spin from lust, our tongues heavy and soaked.

My love swims you, your shoulders like hard sails under the green curls.

Professor Flacks could tell you everything about James Joyce.