she left a

pair of earrings

on the

nightstand

beside

my bed.

I told her so.

they are cheap, she said.

the whole thing

feels

cheap to

me.

I would feel

worse

if she

didn’t like Led Zeppelin,

I think. 

I’ll ask her later

in bed

in my boxers

drinking a beer

with

Knut Hamsun

clothes that need to be folded

and

a finished City Paper crossword

listening to

George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue”

wondering:

what would my mother think of me?

I am

starting to

forget my mother:

does that bother her as much as it

bothers

me?

bzzzz

I watch a bee

alight on a 

dandelion,

drunk and

dizzy with the

idea of

Spring.

.

standing in the

shower, soaping myself,

I am almost in

shock

thinking about my recent string of

good luck regarding women:

they are going

to find us

out

sooner rather than

later:

they always do.

()

am I going
to give pink eye to
someone if I lend them a
book I've
read on the toilet?

the Chinese wasn't great

the day I decided to

move to Philadelphia, I

ordered General Tso’s

at a Chinese

place on

40^th and then
walked a few

doors down into a used book-

store.

found the fiction section.

added some C’s to the bookshelf:

Camus, Carver, Celine.

my journey to the end of the night

is just

starting,

I thought to myself.

out of the store and back on

the street, it

looked like it was about to rain.

I got my food and walked

to a new home.

Just Past the Sideling Hill Rest Stop

on the Pennsylvania Turnpike

back to Philadelphia from

Pittsburgh. young, dead

trees stick up from out of the

snow-covered earth. their frozen bare

limbs spindle skyward supplicantly. I think

about dairy farming and

why I am so afraid of 

talking to the girl

sitting

across the aisle from me.