Contents Acknowledgments   xv That’s the Kind of Brave You Wanted to Be   1 Astigmata  2 Holy Thursday   4 Your Theatrical Training   6 Poem Celebrating the Tiny Metal Flag-Holding Widget   In the Shadows on the Stage of the Lovely Old Wooden   Lincoln Theater in Pastoral Mount Vernon, Washington   7 The Requisite Darkness   8 The Song Sparrow   10 Goofing the Angel   11 Poem for My Friend Louis   12 Sweeney’s   13 Seamus   14 At Marine Park by Flatbush Avenue, August 1974   16 A Chicago Story   18 A Bride with Brass   19 Poem on Our 28th Wedding Anniversary   20 Summer Camp   21  Flew   22 Down by Fulton Fish Market   24 The Morning Bus   26 On Halsted Street   27 Lily   28 Poem for Father’s Day   29 Poem for the Wooden Shutters and Little Mesh   Grilles in Old Confessional Booths   30 Rules for Being an Altar Boy at Saint John   Vianney Parish for the Liturgical Year 1964   32 Such Delicious Absence   34 Learning Owl   35 Poem in Which I Am Sitting At the Sullivan Square Station On the Orange Line in Boston   Staring at the Old Schrafft’s Candy Factory, and Contemplating The Rubble and Smash of an Affair   With a Young Lady That Has Slumped From Bad to Worse to Epically Awful,   And Realizing That Even as I Am Idly Pondering the Detritus of This Terrible Affair   Am Much More Interested in The History of the Old Candy Factory Than I Am in the Young Lady,     Which Probably Explains, Very Well Indeed, Why the Affair Is Disastrous, as I Am   Not in Love With Her at All in the Least, Which I Realize Just as the Train Arrives   36  Warming Up   37 The Tender Next Minute   38 What People Gave Me One Evening In Rural Coastal Oregon after I Told   Them Stories in a Lovely Tiny Library   39 Poem for the Tall Man Who Interrupted Me Last Night During a Reading to Say That He Didn’t Much Care for   What I Was Reading and Could I Read My Better Stuff?    40 Poem in Which My Wife Spoons Her Mother’s Ashes from a Soulless Metal   Box to the Beloved Old Blue Cookie Jar   41 Once in a While We Should Say What Is   42 In the Sacristy Just Before the Dawn Mass   44 Pop   45 The Usual Perfect Mask   46 Poem for My Friend Lee   47 Basketball Dads   48 Poem for My Friend John Roscoe   50 A Tenderness in the World   51 Ten Thousand Smiles   52 Poem in Which Ray Davies and Dave Davies Huddle at the Top of the Staircase at Their Home   In Muswell Hill in London Listening to Their Aunts   53 Tyee   54 Poem for an Editor   55 Near Otis, Oregon   56  Spectacle   58 Poem for a Guy I Knew in College Who Was Not Actually My Friend   59 Here’s What I Think When I Think about That   60 Their Raptorish Privac  y 62 The Tree Surgeon Talks about Good Wood   63 The Hurling Match   64 Miraculum   66 Just Now Right Now   67 How to Dress for Your Wedding   68 What We Think We Forget   70 The Western Yellowjacket: A Note   71 The Peach Pie   72 The Things We Say When We Have Nothing to Say   74 Poem in Which Four Men, after Hauling Flowers from a Church   After a Funeral, Discuss Poetics   75 The Most Arrogant Knife   76 Poem for a Quiet Lady at Saint Patrick’s Church in Oregon   77 Poem for a Friend to Whom I Wrote Every Week   78 Swagger   79 The Best Rebounder I Ever Had   80 Questions I Was Asked Today by Sixth-Graders   82  Yes   83 Finally Is a Lot Further Away Than Sick Ever Expected   84 Poem in Which Dave Kingman Hits a Home Run That Is Amazingly Still Traveling   36 Years Later 86 Skiffling Shuffling Skittering Scuffling   87 Best Day Ever   88 The First Layer of Favorite   89 Holy and Fearsome   90 Owls Are the Bears of the Sky   91 Whatever It Is You Think You Are Chasing, You Just Ran Away from It   92 A Shy Expedition   93 Could There Be a Badger Jesus?   94 The Antipodean Comma   95 And Then There Is This   96 Cards That Are Good for Scraping Ice off Your Car   97 Poem in Which a Love Letter Floats over Western South Dakota   98 Nailed by Wonder   99 The Slight Light   100 A Swirl of Affectionate Air   101 A Poem for Literature Teacher Beth Morgan of Lassiter High in Georgia   102 Poem for Dave McIrvin   103 How Can You Write a Poem if You Are an Essayist?   104  After   105 Seanchaí   106 The Tale You Did Not Know You Needed to Know   108