While Tolstoy wrote outdoors,
his goat
would eye him suspiciously,
making sure he wrote nothing
that was anti-goat,

Each joke
is a crack
of thunder,
a rupture
in the sky’s
grammar.

hail, fellow well met, 1
handful, protagonist seen as quite a, 2
happiness as goal, 46
hazards, 56, 75, 113
headstrong, 2
heart: broken, 56; in mouth, 24–28; murmur, 123; of darkness, 307. See also lungs, liver, lights

I want an X in my name
or a Q with no U, followed by Z
or maybe K

Not a snaggle-toothed-stepsister name, though,
simply smiling, six warts on its nose
a chipped, rusty ax behind its back

We walk down the street
hand in hand
on our mediocre date
when you explain that
not one, not two, but three!
of your friends have recently had appendicitis,
their organ bursting inside of them.