The little elf is dressed in a floppy cap
and he has a big rosy nose and flaring white eyebrows
with short legs and a jaunty step, though sometimes
he glides across an invisible pond with a bonfire glow on his cheeks:
it is northern Europe in the nineteenth century and people
are strolling around Copenhagen in the late afternoon,
mostly townspeople on their way somewhere,
perhaps to an early collation of smoked fish, rye bread, and cheese,
washed down with a dark beer: ha ha, I have eaten this excellent meal
and now I will smoke a little bit and sit back and stare down
at the golden gleam of my watch fob against the coarse dark wool of my vest,
and I will smile with a hideous contentment, because I am an evil man,
and tonight I will do something evil in this city!

Fixation

It's not that hard to climb up
on a cross and have nails driven
into your hands and feet.
Of course it would hurt, but
if your mind were strong enough
you wouldn't notice. You
would notice how much farther
you can see up here, how
there's even a breeze
that cools your leaking blood.
The hills with olive groves fold in
to other hills with roads and huts,
flocks of sheep on a distant rise

I am always interested in the people in films who have just had a drink thrown in their faces. Sometimes they react with uncontrollable rage, but sometimes-my favorites-they do not change their expressions at all. Instead they raise a handkerchief or napkin and calmly dab at the offending liquid, as the hurler jumps to her feet and storms away. The other people at the table are understandably uncomfortable. A woman leans over and places her hand on the sleeve of the man's jacket and says, "David, you know she didn't mean it." David answers, "Yes," but in an ambiguous tone-the perfect adult response. But now the orchestra has resumed its amiable and lively dance music, and the room is set in motion as before. Out in the parking lot, however, Elizabeth is setting fire to David's car. Yes, this is a contemporary film.

Last night I dreamed that my sister-in-law and I were snugly bedded in a dark cocoon, talking softly, safe and alone. With that part of me that once was in love with her, I said, "I missed you when you were gone."
     "Oh," she said, "you missed me because I speak English."
     "No, I really just missed you."
     It was deeply satisfying to open my heart this way.
     My father had torn off his oxygen mask, flung his gown onto the floor, and now, stark naked and peeing into the air, was clambering, tubes and all, over the bed railing, giving loud grunts.
     I sprang up, grabbed him by the shoulders, and slowly talked him back down onto his pillow, where he drifted off again. After mopping the floor, I went back to my cot.
     It was still dark out.
     I lay down and thought about my dream, the dream that was filled with the same rush of sweetness that had come over me the day before, when I had looked out the hospital window, at early light, and far below saw a person walking down the street alone, and felt the words thank you bursting from my chest.

You Never Know is available from Coffee House Press.