Surrealists wanted to show man his own absurdity,
but after the Holocaust, what was left to show?

I think of him, 
in an open-air house, birds of paradise 
spread warm along mascarpone walls,

When the horse began to charge us, 
I thought, Maybe I can take him. 

My mother doesn’t remember my birth.

I didn't understand schadenfreude until some dummkopf parked in my spot.

Muted sweetness stings the roof of my mouth where I burned it earlier at dinner because I was too impatient to wait until it was cool enough to eat.

The yelling had gone on for hours, amassed,
billowed out from my parents’ bedroom
doorway, where my brother and I lingered
and watched greedily.

I often forget that I love you.
We’ve talked about it.
It doesn’t mean I treat you bad.

In a restaurant off Highway I-35,
that might have been Cajun or Italian,
which my father picked for my going away lunch,

An orange gremlin lives at 1600 Penn
and we all read 1984 again.

Sweat was sprinkled on your cheeks,
round and flushed,
and reflecting light from the stainless steel ovens
across the counter from where we sat