Exchanging one anya-nyelv, mother-tongue, for another is like 
nibbling salted peanuts at the sticky bar top,
unplanned but eventual for a bilingual migrant. 

The other mother-
nyelv tongue is

When I was 22, my mother was excited for the first day at my new job, but not so much that she couldn’t wait to tell me about the demon that had attacked her in the night. 

Priorities.

They held

Hank sucked what was left of his cigarette back in one pull and flicked it into the alley.  The hot light of the ember cartwheeled through the air before disappearing into the snow.

Sometimes I stop talking to my boyfriend for no reason.

Because of its hardiness and tendency to escape cultivation, these non-native wisterias are considered invasive species in many parts of the United States, especially the Southeast, due to their

Dan Dority (W. Earl Brown) & Travis Tritt; Trixie (Paula Malcomson) & Natalie Maines; Wild Bill Hickok (Keith Carradine) & Alan Jackson; Calamity Jane Cannery (Robyn Wiegert) & Gretchen Wilson; Johnny Burns (Sean Bridgers) & Dierks Bentle

The lyrics say "He never never lied." Is that possible? Or even desirable?

I write this from a subterranean lair packed tight with things: books, CDs, LPs, cassettes, an old laptop or two, and a pile of baseball memorabilia. This is where I do my writing, on a desk among all

I didn’t know how long it’d been since he’d last eaten. I also knew he needed water.

“Hm,” Yoda grunted, considering the foyer, it’s openness, how exposed he was, and what he could do about it. “Hm,” he grunted again.

The last night of the trip, you stay with one of his friends in Vallecitos, New Mexico.  

When my mother built me
again, she did not wait for sobs

to pass. She left clasps undone
then wept in her bedroom.

I tried to reach for the gown
but my fingers mumbled back hair

into metal

Soon sunlight would be replaced by nighttime.  I felt this, the same way my grandma could feel the rain coming on.  

What's It Like?

           We have made unspeakable mean indescribable:
           it really means nasty.
                                   -Paul Fussell

You don’t mean nasty. You mean

He tells them, pays for the burgers and, as they drive to the mall, as if to encourage them, a general addressing his troops, he tells them about fights with broken bottles, about fighting the black kids because he was white, the Italian and Polish kids because he was Jewish, the rich kids because he was poor.

I don't notice anything when the television is on.  A bomb could go off in my kitchen and I wouldn't notice the wreckage until the next commercial break.

When I wasn’t on the road, I ate lunch at the diner just to watch Cathy polish the cutlery. 

the man who touches you also touches
the other women of the city, this special
man who you chose to be your first man
even after you’ve met so many men who
wanted to know you as a woman

Maybe ‘white trash American girl’ is a compliment over there?

Like a punch. Like Margera. BAM.

The Brooklyn Academy of Music is smaller than the Met and cheaper than the Met ($28 versus $40). It forms a triangle between the Barclays Center and a huge Apple

Well, at least we aren't just dead, she said.  

What?

At least we aren't dead, right?

Yeah. 

When our baby arrives I am feeling a funny mix of elation and terror – what have we done?

I will shake your hand now. Later maybe we will have drinks. 

My mother crooned “Poetry Man” in the car between errands and have-to-be’s as in, “We have to be home by six,” or, “You have to be at piano rehearsal at three thirty.”

A woman at our airport gate is eating a box of powdered donut holes and not licking her lips. She is capable of licking her lips, I know this because only after she finishes exactly three donut holes