I also offer special thanks to my editors, Morgan Entrekin at Grove/Atlantic and Jamie Byng of Canongate for their steadfast support of my literary work.

Melanie Jackson, my agent, deserves particular mention for her unstinting efforts and merciful acumen on my behalf.

Finally, my deepest gratitude to family and friends for their unflagging faith, encouragement, and forbearance.

Selected Poems

Short Prose

Learning to Talk

Whenever Jason said “beeber” for “beaver”

or “skirl” for “squirrel”

I secretly loved it.

They’re better words:

The busy beeber beebing around;

the grey squirrel’s tail

like a skirl of smoke along a maple branch.

I never told him he was saying

their names “wrong,”

though I did pronounce them conventionally.

One time he noticed, and explained,

“‘Beeber’ is how I say it.”

“Great,” I told him, “whatever

moves you.”

But within a week

he was pronouncing both “properly.”

I did my duty

and I’m sorry.

Farewell Beeber and Skirl.

So much beauty lost to understanding.

The Cookie Jar

Coddington Mall was clogged with Christmas shoppers as I waited in line at the Cookie Jar, a bakery devoted to my favorite confection.

It was just after noon–lunch break–and a single clerk was left to work the counter, a young woman with a strained, scattered smile. She was working as fast as she could, but the line moved slowly. I was passing the time with the sports page, idly considering whether the 49ers were worth $100 and three points against the Rams, when my attention was drawn to the elderly woman in front of me in line. By her stoop and wrinkles I figured she was in her early 70s, or a hard 65 at least. She was wearing a grey dress, but it was nearly obscured by a heavy black sweater that hung almost to the hemline. She was leaning forward, weight on her cane, her nose to the display case, examining the cookies with the calm, fierce attention of a hawk. Taken by the force of her concentration, I folded the sports page and said pleasantly, “It’s always tough to decide.”

Her gaze didn’t flicker.

I couldn’t blame her for ignoring me. Why should an old woman, in a culture of muggers, rapists, and rip-off artists, encourage the idle conversation of some bearded and obviously half-demented hippie from the hills, where he probably grew tons of marijuana and did Lord-knows-what to the sheep. I felt the little wash of sadness that comes when your good intentions are blanked by cultural circumstances. I didn’t persist.

When it was the old woman’s turn, in a thick Slavic accent she ordered three chocolate chip cookies. “The big ones,” she specified, tapping the glass to indicate her choice.

The harried clerk dutifully plucked out three of the saucer-sized cookies with a confectioner’s tissue. I noticed one of the cookies had a small chunk broken off its side. So did the old woman: “None that are broke!” she commanded.