Month

Invites the occasional guest To sit by the coffee table and Page through academic journals That are too boring to read Properly. The visitors to my office Are few and far between And generally they camp out elsewhere Or conduct their business quickly. No one tarries in reception For very long. So sometimes I imagine that I will arrive to find You on the couch. Waiting for me, patiently. I greet you warmly And then we

I entered one of the defining questions of my life into the Google search engine. The returned links discussed cast changes on a popular British television baking show. Steven Wright asked, “If you’re driving at the speed of light and you turn on your headlights, would they do anything?” The dialogue in a recent Doctor Who sneaked in the phrase, “Stronger Together”, which was the slogan

IV. My lover once confessed to me, “I am a terrible man.” I asked him why he thought so. “I have all these faults and weaknesses, That I am forced to face too often. I make my excuses, And then feel miserable For the rest of the day.” That was half a lifetime ago. Now, I wonder if I had misheard a homonym. Maybe he was, or should have been, Comparing himself to Tissue paper. V. For Halloween,

I. I felt guilty, so I pulled Into the Redemption Center. But all they wanted were My bottles and cans. II. Now that fall has arrived in New England, My husband is wearing his black leather jacket With the matching cowboy hat That he picked up at a flea market On our vacation to Florida. He says that he looks a little like Burt Reynolds in Smokey and the Bandit. I tell him, just once, “No. You don’t.̶