Table of Contents
Acknowledgments v
Author's Note xi
Loosies 3
Cross frame
Used. Sold. 7
Circle 8
After murder, 10
False Starts for Cursed Letters 11
Two Black writers walk into a bar in Colorado is not the beginning of a racist joke 12
Day one, 13
{Ení (in Therapy)} 14
The Illusion of Hips 15
Ekphrasis: Giza '61 16
Selma Love Song 17
Why Grits Burn So Bad 18
{Ení (Woke up Sunday Saturday night drunk)} 19
Persist (I) 20
Oak 21
The Poem that Makes You Love Me 22
Heretics 23
Blood Aubade, 1969 25
(In Medias) Res 26
How You Got Here 27
Continuum 29
Hot Donuts, Long's Bakery 30
Dismantle 31
If There Is a Reason 32
When a woman hits on you in a bookstore, 33
Persist (II) 34
Blood Houses 35
127 Notebooks 37
Amplified 38
Spark, earth
Abandon 43
Mother's Day 45
Farther 46
Love me again 47
Persist (III) 48
&-in a Thousand-Yard Stare-Reverie 49
O-H-I-O 50
Monday morning, the first thing 51
Protocol 52
Persist (IV) 53
{Ení Dreams (w/Regrets)} 54
Montgomery 55
Sugar Hill 56
Caterwaul 57
Family Business: Indy 58
Clip 60
Haints 62
Rorschach visits the ER 64
Is it wrong 65
Persist (V) 67
When You Know, Logically, That Death Is Not Just a Matter of Rest but a Way of Making Space For New People On Earth, &, Quite Honestly, After All You've Loved, Pampered & Lost, You, Selfish By Your Own Admission, Could Care Less 68
Tout De Suite 69
Upon the Wife's Return, the Lovers Kiss @ the Airport 70
Workers, Morning: The Thirsty Scholar 71
{Ení (of the Unreliable Knuckles)} 73
Confession: 74
Prosody 75
A grandmother asks me how to spell divine 76
Jack London Square, September 77
Tongues 78
Epilogue 81
