My mother and I rarely speak; I live in New York, and she lives in Ireland, but we are never really far from each other. Whenever one of us is sick or troubled, the other will call to say, I knew it, you were on my mind.

I dreamed I had to hold
water without
drowning.

I am hunched over a watercolor painting,
trying to find the right shade for a sugar maple.
He sits next to me watching. I am flattered—
my male peers usually don’t pay much attention

What if the world ended at the perfect, green limit of the hedgeline?
And what if this fact never bothered you?
Because you would never so much as wonder where exactly the world extended to,
or when exactly it stopped.

Focus on the TV, I am thinking, but that’s how the trouble
starts. A program about the year so far -- riots and looting
and my uncle harrumphing how this country has its ass in a sling.

Yes≡the (mod Whole), i = world, ... ,