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For Harvey Shapiro I stand and listen, head bowed, to my inner complaint. Persons passing by think I am searching for a lost coin. You’re fired, I yell inside after an especially bad episode. I’m letting you go without notice or terminal pay. You just lost another chance to make good. But then I watch myself standing at the exit, depressed and about to leave, and wave myself back in wearily, for who else could I get in my place to do the job in dark, airless conditions?

Do this: take two fingers, place them on the spot behind your ear, either ear, the spot where your skull drops off into that valley of muscle & nerve—that is the muscle that holds up the skull, that turns the dumb bone this way & that, that nods your face up & down when you think you get it—press deeper, touch the little bundle of nerves buried there, buried in the gristle—the nerves that make you blink when the light bewilders you, that make your tongue slide in & out when you think you’re in love, when you think you need a drink, touch that spot as if you have an itch, close your eyes & listen, please, close your eyes—can you hear it? We think our souls live in boxes, we think someone sits behind our eyes, lording in his little throne, steering the fork to the mouth, the mouth to the tit, we think hungry children live in our bellies & run out with their empty bowls as the food rains down, we sometimes think we are those hungry children, we think we can think anything & it won’t matter, we think we can think cut out her tongue, & then ask her to sing.

Home team suffers string of losses.—Time to change loyalties. Quadruple bypass.—Hold the bacon on that next cheeseburger. Poems tanking.—After stormiest days, sun comes out from behind clouds, or used to. Marriage on rocks.—Nothing like Coke. Election going the wrong direction.—Kick off slippers, take deep breathe,be here now. Boss says your performance needs boost.—A long hot bath smoothes wrinkles. War toll tops 100,000.—Get your mind off it, switch to reality TV. Lake Tang Woo Chin Chicken with Lobster and Sweet Clam Sauce still not served and everyone else got their orders twenty minutes back.—Savor the water, feast on the company. Subway floods and late for audition.—Start being the author of your own performance. Take a walk. Slip on ice, break arm.—In moments like this, the preciousness of life reveals itself. Wages down in non-union shop.—You’re a sales associate, not a worker; so proud to be part of the company. Miss the train?—Great chance to explore the station! Suicide bombers wrecks neighborhood.—Time to pitch in! Nothing doing.—Take a break! Partner in life finds another partner.—Now you can begin the journey of life anew. Bald?—Finally, you can touch the sky with the top of your head. Short-term recall shot.—Old memories are sweetest. Hard drive crashes and novel not backed up.—Nothing like a fresh start. Severe stomach cramps all morning.—Boy are these back issues of Field and Stream engrossing. Hurricane crushes house.—You never seemed so resilient. Brother-in-law completes second year in coma.—He seems so much more relaxed than he used to. $75 ticket for Sunday meter violation on an empty street in residential neighborhood.—The city needs the money to make us safe and educate our kids. Missed last episode of favorite murder mystery because you misprogrammed VCR.—Write your own ending! Blue cashmere pullover has three big moth holes.—What a great looking shirt! Son joins skinhead brigade of Jews for Jesus.—At least he’s following his bliss. Your new play receives scathing reviews and closes after a single night.—What a glorious performance! Pungent stench of homeless man on subway, asking for food.—Such kindness in his eyes, as I turn toward home. Retirement savings lost on Enron and WorldCom.—They almost rhyme. Oil spill kills seals.—The workings of the Lord are inscrutable. Global warming swamps land masses.—Learn to accept change. Bike going fast in wrong direction knocks you over.—A few weeks off your feet, just what the doctor ordered. AIDS ravaging Africa.—Wasn’t Jeffrey Wright fabulous in Angels in America? Muffler shot.—There’s this great pizza place next to the shop. Income gap becomes crater.—Good motivation to get rich. Abu Ghraib prisoners tortured.—Let’s face it, shit happens. Oscar wins Emmy.—Award shows are da bomb. FBI checking your library check-outs.—I also recommend books on Amazon. Gay marriages annulled.—Who needs the state to sanctify our love? President’s lies kill GIs.—He’s so decisive about his core values. Self-Help.—Other drowns.

A chicken soup for the rainbow lover’s soul. A chicken soup for the lover of chicken soup. A carnage of birds, a devastation. Chicken soup for the dried-up garden— It’s been a lousy summer sucking us dry. Chicken soup for the grocery list. Chicken soup for unwanted potatoes. Chicken soup for extinct animals. In the west, the sun sets upon chicken soup. With or without noodles or rice or barley, Or vegetables—canned or otherwise— Carrots and celery or egg drop chicken soup— Chicken eggs, of course—or the alphabet Or chili sauce. Chicken soup for chili lovers, For the spicy soul. Chicken butchered & boiled specifically for your cold. A chicken soup for the cold soul, A chicken soup for the sole of your shoe. A chicken soup for decision making: Does she love me?  Or love me not? Knots tied with chicken soup. Chicken soup tied and sold in knots. 38 ways to tie your soup, to be tied. Chicken soup for the protection of others. A prayer to chicken soup, may it bring me A winning lottery ticket. Chicken soup For recovering alcoholics who still Need hydration. A hydrangea’s Chicken soup—to be loved like no other. A chicken soup for Barry Bonds— May he break Hank Aaron’s record. Stick a pin in the chicken soup & bet On its opponent. 30-Love. Match point. A chicken soup for winners. A chicken soup for losers. Chicken soup for those who tie or draw. The 60-plus occupations of soup. Chicken for Sue, born in the year Of the snake. The snake that ate An alligator and died. They both died. A chicken soup for the one who is eaten. A chicken soup for the one who eats Things other than chicken soup. Transcending the bowl. A meta-bowl Chicken soup for the transcended bowl. Chicken soup for the transcending soup. Chicken soup for the Marxist, steering Away from values associated with heirarchies. Chicken soup for the mud wrestler, The roller derby queen. Chicken soup For dairy queen, for the queen of hearts, For Lady Di and the paparazzi, For clean and dirty kings and queens. For kiwis with wings, for the royal Food pyramid. Chicken soup in January, it’s so nice To slip upon the sliding ice.

What kind of delusion are you under? The life he hid just knocked you flat. You see the lightning but not the thunder. What God hath joined let no man put asunder. Did God know you’d marry a rat? What kind of delusion are you under? His online persona simply stunned her as it did you when you started to chat. You see the lightning but not the thunder. To the victors go the plunder: you should crown them with a baseball bat. What kind of delusion are you under? The kind that causes blunder after blunder. Is there any other kind than that? You see the lightning but not the thunder, and for one second the world’s a wonder. Just keep it thrilling under your hat. What kind of delusion are you under? You see the lightning but not the thunder.

Did you sneeze? Yes, I rid myself of the imposter inside me. Did you iron your shirt? Yes, I used the steam of mother's hate. Did you wash your hands? Yes, I learned my hygiene from a raccoon. I prayed on my knees, and my knees answered with pain. I gargled. I polished my shoes until I saw who I was. I inflated my résumé by employing my middle name. I walked to my interview, early, The sun like a ring on an electric stove. I patted my hair when I entered the wind of a revolving door. The guard said, For a guy like you, it's the 19th floor. The economy was up. Flags whipped in every city plaza In America. This I saw for myself as I rode the elevator, Empty because everyone had a job but me. Did you clean your ears? Yes, I heard my fate in the drinking fountain's idiotic drivel. Did you slice a banana into your daily mush? I added a pinch of salt, two raisins to sweeten my breath. Did you remember your pen? I remembered my fingers when the elevator opened. I shook hands that dripped like a dirty sea. I found a chair and desk. My name tag said my name. Through the glass ceiling, I saw the heavy rumps of CEOs. Outside my window, the sun was a burning stove, All of us pushing papers To keep it going.

To catch the spirit in its wayward flight Through mazes manifold, what task supreme! For when to floods has grown the quiet stream, Much human skill must aid its rage to fight; And when wild winds invade the solemn night, Seems not man’s vaunted power but a dream? And still more futile, ay, we e’en must deem This quest to tame the soul, and guide aright Its restless wanderings, – to lure it back To shoals of calm. Full many a moan and sigh Attend the strife; till, effort merged in prayer, Oft uttered, clung to – when of strength the lack Seems direst – brings the answer to our cry: A gift from Him who lifts our ev’ry care.

I know I promised to stop talking about her, but I was talking to myself. The truth is, she’s a child who stopped growing, so I’ve always allowed her to tag along, and when she brings her melancholy close to me I comfort her. Naturally you’re curious; you want to know how she became a gnarled branch veiled in diminutive blooms. But I’ve told you all I know. I was sure she had secrets, but she had no secrets. I had to tell her mine.

I see myself in the shadows of a leaf compressed to the green blades growing to a point like the shards of miles of mirrors falling and cracking to perfect gardens. I never inspect the withered assumption of my face’s petty dialogue in raindrops, the deceptive spreading of the words oozing from the skin to the edges of water etched on the ground by gravity and wishing. Passing for the seriousness of my eye, platitudes of my white collar or the perfect posture of my lips, it skirts from the leaves of the plant hiding me and sits stoic like stone in my pupil, mute and unassuming, like Rashi. To gather myself I will swim naked in the wind, bending my blind elbows in circles, stopping now to dance like the cherubic gold on the ark, and gather myself from the particles of this excitement another structure, one closely resembling the beginning.

He wants to be a brutal old man, an aggressive old man, as dull, as brutal as the emptiness around him, He doesn’t want compromise, nor to be ever nice to anyone. Just mean, and final in his brutal, his total, rejection of it all. He tried the sweet, the gentle, the “oh, let’s hold hands together” and it was awful, dull, brutally inconsequential. Now he’ll stand on his own dwindling legs. His arms, his skin, shrink daily. And he loves, but hates equally.