Table of Contents
Local History
Preface 3
In the Corner of the Eye 5
A Coronary Artist 6
The Order of the Story I 8
Gloss (a catalog of feeling) 10
The Order of the Story II 12
Local History (cold war breaks) 14
City 18
Household tips 23
Open door 24
Correspondence Theory 27
Surplus Landmarks (Union Square Blues) 47
Surplus Future Imperfect 48
Surplus 49
Verse 50
The net 52
Woman, with Wings 54
Afterword 56
Piece Logic
House of Broken Things 59
Time management 65
Object Authority 66
Administering the Atomic Kindom 69
Invisible Hands 71
Proof 73
Household Gods 74
High Anxiety 76
Tin Gods 77
Arcade
First words 81
Coronary Artist (2) 83
Coronary Artist (3) 84
Magritte's Black Flag 85
Starting with A 86
Arcade 87
The voice of no 89
Science of the Concrete 90
Fortune 93
Personal 94
Madame Narcissist 95
So sex, the throne whose abrasions we crave 97
After Baudelaire's "The Muse for Hire" 98
Biographical Suite 101
Body language 104
A Day and its Approximates
Reader we were meant to meet 109
Fool for love 110
If not for the comma 112
This is no time for nail biting 114
From a Handbook of Quarrels 115
This is where love comes in 116
Octavio Paz's calendar 117
Time Slips Right Before the Eyes
The Massacre of Rocks 121
Mood Librarian-a poem in koan 125
Time Slips Right Before the Eyes 133
Chapter 1 Home 134
Chapter 2 (Back) Home 135
Chapter 3 An Old Home 137
Chapter 4 Going Home 138
The Awful Truth 142
For Fern 143
Should You Find Me 145
Love's 147
Veronica: A Suite in X Parts
Veer iconic 151
"Someone matching your description" 152
Ghost Names 155
Veronica 157
Suspicious activity 161
Upon another acquittal (a choreography of grief) 163
Mourning Birds 165
After a dream deferred 167
Soft Assault 168
Body Double 170
What could go wrong? 172
Broken English 173
On occasion, we produce history, the present's surprise 177
Sorrow Songs 178
Instructions for Waking 182
Instructions for the next chapter 183
Instructions for travel over land (pandemic version) 184
Context is all 185
Fr** dom 186
This is where love comes in 187
The back of the future 188
Lines on Love's (Loss) 190
Wavering: adios, vamos, scat 192
Author's Note & Acknowledgments 193