Poem TWENTY-FOUR has been removed and is now posted on chocolate is a verb, 17 August 2016.

Dear Czesław, Hard to believe it’s been 12 years, but listen, hey, Happy Anniversary! I wasn’t sure about having this letter printed in The New York Times — do you still subscribe? — but I didn’t know how else to reach you. I notice the…

Poem TWENTY-TWO has been removed and now appears on chocolate is a verb, 23 August 2016.

Dear Tod, Thought you’d like to know I’ve heard again from your friend the Nigerian prince, who’s vacationing in Saint-Tropez with my friend Shelly. I can picture them together — her dark curls and his, her vanilla flesh his chocolate — though his taste in…

Poem TWENTY has been removed and now appears on chocolate is a verb, 18 August 2016.

The girl in the apartment upstairs vacuumed every day — the burr and clatter of the building’s Hoover racketing across wood floor, linoleum, bumping baseboards — the thump of wheels running over the sill between rooms — the motor hum and vibration — that was…

Poem EIGHTEEN has been removed and is now posted on chocolate is a verb, 16 August 2016.

The origin of tears Because we began as rivers stretched supine along the slow-carve trace of sea-flow — because we stared up into the chronology of light and into the faces of saurian beasts who saw in our liquid musings only themselves — because the…

Poem SIXTEEN has been removed and now appears on chocolate is a verb, 31 August 2016.

The alley has gone to hell, garages belching robot grunge and failed steampunk rust. In between, a green sprawl of pumpkins and watermelons lines the fence and spills over the tops of compost bins. An Airstream that has seen too many rivers, aluminum foil peeling…