Mingle Moments
     These are the ones that are so hard for me sometimes, sometimes when I lie just awake, half asleep, or rooting through conversations when I just want to hold you.

Generalized Activity
     So incredibly irritating especially when those who can't speak French are here. Wiggling like robots.

The Round of Images
     You gave me many, and the best of all these. And then one day I went beyond, and one day I sang you.

The Decipherer
     I never understood the job he said he had in the war. It was something with codes and puzzles and he used a white cane to be blind. I was tall and I loved him.

Tissue of Episodes
     Living in the cool woods museum with the strange owl-face. Kissed like a fair Rumpelstiltskin on ice. We admit it. All paisley.

Recording Unwinder
     I must have purchased four of these before finding the one that sufficed.

Villager with Close-Cropped Hair
     Hair of the personage, I thought you'd say. The whole book I'd visualized really well, but I couldn't see over his buzz-cut.

The Life of Pleasure
     The Sea of Heartbreak.

Woman Trying on Hat
     O for god's sake all this trying on is fun and especially the gangster hat with flowers with the hatband all snipped.

The Substance of Stars
     I can't tell how you know this and you are crushing my spine. I trust you, but I can't tell why. You believe me for no reason. The stars are like eyes.

Spirit of Tarnish
     Something keeps pulling me back to the edge of the mantelpiece: B was there. Something he was trying to say about the silence, his and J's, though not the J we think of. A pale turquoise hid there, and a wild watch on his arm.

The Puckered Collar
     All tuckered out. Rinsed in saline forests. Blue around the edges. Sweet wide and yellow. A white patch.

The Old Man of the Beach
     Not on the beach, of the beach, which you'd think would make all the difference. Formed of the beach, perhaps, like a shallow puddle in the shape of torso, arms, legs in whitest sand. Beard made of seaweed, scallops for eyes.