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No One Knows the Way to Heaven

Here’s the world, sweetheart. One word as small & large as a father.

Nocturne

I’d make a tub of mud to keep live crabs. I’d refill it daily.

Nocturne Op. 2

Music that tells of how things stand in the troubled world you now have.

None of Us Were Dying Then

That summer we moved to the house you would die in years later.

North to Natoma and Other Poems

It’s been months, and the fields are good for nothing but night talks.

Northern California

Teams spend days surveying the damage and label me a mess.

Nostalgia in February

I want everything to mean. To have worth and weight. But it doesn’t.

Notes from a Breakup: A Field Guide through Heartbreak

“Why do we always fight,” he finally said, his voice quiet, resigned.

Notes from My Apprenticeship

Here is the fat guy whose Chihuahua gnawed through his stomach.

Notes Nearing Ninety

At nineteen you were six-foot-two. At ninety-one you will be two-foot-six.

Nothing (Elegy for My Father)

Nothing stills, nothing stops. The world is still as it was before.

Nothing about This Is Epic

It’s cruel to watch my edges crystallize and reflect light.

November

Miriam slept at the ranch often, although little sleep happened there.

Now’s Dream

That what I call my Self is asleep, and has dreamed up these lilacs.

Nuisance Value

He knew deep down that only her ridiculous optimism kept them going.

Number Eight Daughter

“My brother’s last words to me were about you. Did you know that?”

Nurse Lynn Speaks Her Thoughts to the Wind

It’s true, I killed my husband. I had my reasons. He was a hunter on the trail.

Obit

The Village wasn’t really a village. No walnut trees. Just cut flowers.

Object Permanence and Other Poems

The end’s already in motion, the end was starting this whole time.

Occasions of Sin

Goretti was a victim perfect for her time, an icon of Catholic sexual politics.

Ode to Left-Handedness and Other Poems

Fearing for them, I clustered them together, then cut them off.

Odyssey

Today is my favorite kind of day. Night opens, light concedes.

Of Blood and Stem

If I had known I would have saved the abacus from the fire.

Of Kin and Kind

Having a sister or a friend is like sitting at night in a lighted house.

Of the God That Comes to Mind

Relief workers tore swaths of insulation from the rafters of the house.

oh

Doctor Dressler left her a note: Suicide. Back by 7:00. Love, Max.

Oh Father, Your Fear

Is it that he is too tired or too afraid to blink into the oil of his own machine?

Oil

I sometimes have to laugh because even now, as a middle-aged man.

Okeechobee

She wants something red and shiny that always works.

Old Friend

I arrange your five deflating basketballs under the lonely net.