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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.

A Wonderful Life!

a cockroach with

angel wings

dies in a dirty coffee mug

in the sink;

He’s smiling.

it’s a Christmas miracle

or suicide.

that was fun,

that was fun, she says, we

should do

that

more often.

what? I ask.

have fun? or have

sex?

and I walk out

of the room,

naked, to

flush

the condom

stuck to my

still-hard dick before

she has time to

say anything.

a few days

later, I get her answer:

neither.

and I lose my
first printing
copy
of James Dickey's
Deliverance.

Live in Central Park

I leave a party

once they put on a recording of some old Paul Simon,

walk home

and dial a few numbers

hoping, for some reason, to

put my foot in a

pile

of sentimental bullshit

with past lovers.

none of
them

pick
up:

what a relief.

One for the middle aged Ethiopian man who says I smoke too much

I forgive him:
who doesn’t smoke too much?
and he tips a dollar for

every cup of 

coffee he buys.

I just

wish that he didn’t
smoke

Parliament lights.