writers and magazines

are everywhere, even your mother

is a writer and her ass is big and beautiful.

now wait a minute, he said.

I waited a minute.

I can take you, he said.

where? I asked.

all the way out, he said.

there’s nothing between us but space,

I said, and if you want to close that

space, that’s up to you.

you’ve got a big mouth, he said.

and your mother’s got a great ass, I said.

why do you keep talking about my mother’s ass?

he asked.

because that’s all I see when I see her, I

answered.

they don’t want your stuff in Scotland, he

said, they won’t like it and I don’t like it

either.

we were sitting at a table at the beach

on a windy Tuesday afternoon

and drinking green beer.

we were both writers but he wasn’t as

good a writer as I was and it pissed him

off.

then his mother walked back to our

table and then she sat down with us.

she had been to the lady’s room.

Mary, I told her, I’m going to send some

poems to Scotland.

order me another beer, she said.

I got the waiter’s eye, he came over

and I ordered 3 more beers.

Mary spit on the floor and then

lit a cigarette.

Mary, I said, did anybody tell you

that you have beautiful eyes?

they glow like beacons in the

fog.

yeah? she said.

Mom, said the other writer, don’t

believe anything he says.

but I do, she said.

Mary, I said, you’ve also got a

very beautiful ass.

and you’ve got a face like a

hyena, she said.

thank you, Mary.

it was a windy useless afternoon,

the seagulls were starving and

angry, they circled,

squawking, landing on the

sand, picking up uneatable

bits and then tossing them away, rising

again, flying, terribly beautiful

in an unreal sort of way and I

had half a chicken sandwich left,

I hurled it out the window and

the birds went for it, and the sea

kept pounding and the fish kept

swimming and we sat there with

our shoes on and our clothes on

and I was a

better writer than he but

that didn’t take much and it didn’t

really matter.

then Mary spilled her beer in her

lap,

got up and brushed herself off

with a napkin

and then I saw all that ass

again

as the waves roared and

I sat there with my biggest

hard-on since

1968.

owl

I saw an owl tonight.

I saw my first owl tonight.

he was sitting high on the phone pole.

my wife shined a light upon him.

he didn’t move.

he just sat there

illuminated,

his eyes shining back.

my first owl.

my San Pedro owl.

then the phone rang.

we went inside.

it was somebody who wanted to

talk.

then they were finished.