Tied to the Puritan Ethic
Nonsympathetic to spastics
After all this, still a lonely bastard



Jeff Brouws, West Motel Drive, Lordsburg, New Mexico, 2001


What the Therapist Said
by Nin Andrews

Just because you think a man is dead
doesn’t mean you should leave him.
Really, the dead have a lot of advantages
over the living. Think about your dad.
How much better you get along with him
now that he’s passed. It’s time’s way.
And why in the end everything turns out okay.
A lot of women would envy you. The dead,
let’s be honest, they’re pretty stiff fellows.
And you don’t have to worry about talking to them.
You can if you want to of course. You said
the one thing you do talk about
is how you both hate George Bush.
I imagine all the dead hate Bush. Too bad
they don’t vote anymore. But that’s something.
It’s a start. Besides, in these parts
most of the living men are Republicans.
Really, I’d think twice about this.
Whether you’d like to spend your life
with a man who’s dead or alive. It’s a tough choice.



In the Gift Shop at the Lunatic Asylum
-- by Paul Violi

Always on sale, the figurines
of infants are made out of tar
and are produced by inmates,
former apprentices
of Imbrolgione mostly.
On visiting days family
and friends purchase them
as presents for the inmates.


Argument
-- by Jonathan Galassi

Chaotic sun on asphalt camouflages
the order of the shadows that the trees
throw down in mulled, multivalent mirages:
wheels within wheels -- I've had my share of these.

The clouds upstairs, too, seem to move by magic;
their hectic travels never look the same.
I can't see their wildness has a logic
and I don't know my wildness has a name.