THE MUSE
You owe me. Pay up. According to my accounts, you have...

CASUAL FRIEND
Send lies to the people listed below....

THE AWARDS COMMITTEE
This is to notify you that--but what's the use?...

THE WISE
The world could fall to pieces with no notice....

UNCLE AL
A chicken is a touchy creature....

THE OTHERS
Here where we live the lines are down and the surprises build into snowbanks...

DANNY
Dusty Clinton Township kids making paper roosters and snowball...

SAMUEL RENSBERGER
I am your grandfather's grandfather and through my wakeless sleep I dream...

OLD NEIGHBOR
East across low muddy fields and behind the screening trees you can see...

THE WORM COUNCIL
We call your attention to worms. Though sweeping ice age disaster...

THE HERON
I flew in down by the round deep pond behind your house...

WITNESS
I saw the largest moon ever rise huge bright yellow, sailing where it cared to...

EARLY MORNINGS

It was country so flat
you could roll a marble from Middlebury to Millersburg
they said. Sometimes
I woke in the dark hearing Dad holler
through cupped hands at the cows
like two or three honks on a horn,
cows' creamy voices answering back.
I was 17 and couldn't stay asleep
and couldn't get out of bed. 
I kissed my fingers, remembering her father's couch,
our dense tumbling.
My Dad and the cows did their singing,
a gift for the sun's risings,
and I was lazy,
lazy and full of passion.