Table of Contents
Contents The Blue Whale Has the Largest Heart of Any Living Creature 3I. Homo 7 Litany for My Father’s Sperm 8 Childless 10 Fruit 11 Creation Myth 13 My Uncle’s Barn Cat as the Shadow of Death 14 Childless 15 On Swallowing the Fourth Plague of Egypt 16 Because Eden, from the Hebrew, Meant Pleasure 17 Childless 19 Ellipsis, Dash, Bullet Point 20 Cleaning My Father’s Rifle 22 They Will Not Eat the Bird of Paradise 25 Why My Father Smells Like the Night 27 Childless 28 After Reading the Wikipedia Entry on Homosexual Behavior in Moths 29 Inside the Creation Museum 30 The Average Human 32 Childless 34 Chemistry 35 On Billy Lucas, Who Hanged Himself in His Grandmother’s Barn 37II. Devotions 41III. Twin Peaks Bar, San Francisco 47 Childless 49 Toy Box 50 Shelter 51 Elegy for the Girl I Was 55 Childless 56 Litany for My Father’s Guns 57 Still Life with Cows 59 It’s the Dog 61 Childless 63 At the Sperm Bank 64 Prayer for the Bear My Father Shot 65 Elegy for the Bully 66 Heaven and Earth 67 Mendel on His Death Bed 70 Childless 72 Creation Myth 73 Territory 74 One Day, He Said, I’d Carry on the Family Name 76 Frutti di Mare 77 Acknowledgments 81