HALFWAY THROUGH THE YEAR OF THE DRAGON She loves the music box forever, she's crying on my shoulder-The Blue Nile, 'Stay'You can mythologise anywhere but you cannot

THE STRAWBERRY BLONDE Miasmal afternoons in run-down shadeof clutter and rickety porches, smells of sex,and filthy carpets, loose floors, leaning walls,interminably appointmentless an

HOMO NARRANS

ANOTHER PLANETHe has been studying the lostgirls again, says he’s puzzledby their music. Partial to the scars.Their high voices that draguntil they break off.

DRIFT From one directiona body made of gold.From anotherboats in snow.Months too early andno sacrifice mendingthis.It wasn’tno wind;there was wind—

“NOTHING GETS THROUGH TO YOU, JACKASS” When Catullus says it,it sounds more eloquentthan when I say it:Nothing gets through to you, jackass.When I forgetto put gas in the ga

THE BIRDS SELL OUT The raven has turned his intuition into a program.The seagull lapses into self-parody.Even the magpie’s ego is outstripped by the hype surrounding him.The thrush

GHAZAL: "AFGHAN" You need an example of how this knotted worldAdumbrates the meanings of words? I have one: "Afghan."Seventy-three per cent of AmericanFamilies possess greater than

CASA GRANDE At the Casa Grande disco, men hold onto other men’s behinds, and womenhold on to men’s behinds,and everyone is holding onto what it means to be dancingand holding

DAUGHTER OF WOMANFadia is — her father is martyr. She isOn a mountain — radiant — unknown.Says, There will be no setting up tent here:This light enough resting place.Fadia prophe

A Man is Dragging a Dead Dogon a lead, down the street.It makes a low-register hissing sound that is constant and gives

MIKULOVIn any eventJust lit by myself the candles for the second nightOff small road in south MoravaA once classic Jewish town, now a UNESCO ghost town.Think they are the only flame in win

ARCHITECTURE IN CLEVELAND She looks out the hotel room’s picture window onto the heartof downtown. To the left is river, to the right is lake.He pushes his fingers into pulsing tem

PERUProvided that an economic and political stability is maintained,Peru could be one of the biggest producers of

BUDAPEST it’s morning and my knee hurts when I move itthe right one but only when I move itso I stop moving my right leg but nowthere’s this dull ache under my left should

A PAINTER, ON HER ANNIVERSARYMy first painting, that one. I rememberthe feeling that the light was creatingthe shade, somehow, of coming into November,of always turning, never