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Selection from
The Busyness of Passing Waves

City of Rats

Days

It's the same as always...

Recently...

You lying there bare and neat...

And still...

Midnight Snack

Not a Full Moon

Dream

Sadness

At this hour things change shape
begin to talk back to me, inhabit space
in a less tangible way.

These words no longer carefully
polished, like they might
be coming directly from the thrift shop on

Columbus and 75th, bent, partially corroded
but essential in their way. Even my face
looks different at this hour,

sinister and perverse, calm,
hysterical and luminous,
not unlike one of Alice

in Wonderland's creatures. Back and
forth I pace, measuring over and over the distance
from the couch to the computer, finding

a rhythm, a meaning. Beyond me
the phone pushed up against the printer
challengingly ensconced, silently awaiting

the next call, with answering machine, scanner, cell
phone, palm pilot, each one blinking
its big wistful eyes at the other, then back at me_almost

commenting on how we’re all interconnected, by wires
and possibilities, you sitting here reading, and I, a thousand
miles away trying to guess your

next thought, pluck it right out of thin air
and reproduce for you to find again,
somewhat familiar, somewhat

not really mine at all.