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Best Man Forward For Chuck The Love of a Mentor Interview with Asa Baber

Forms of Love The Rose's Thorns Almost a Double Ballade Ache The Y Listening Absolution Parting Leaving Eurydice On the Town Happiness The Silent Time Moving In After Making Love Isaac Dreams of Rebekah at the Moment of His Sacrifice Paradise The Bridge If You Should Ever Return Hunting Season Another Year

Feeding the Crow Waiting for Mercy

Letters of Roy Bedichek Afterword

New Growth Introduction

Recent Poems Deconstruction Nostalgia

Road Home Searching a Parking Lot... 290 West "Hamlet" Black Bowl with Apples If You Should Ever Return Lying in a Hammock in Rose Mountain, New Mexico These are things I've been wanting to tell you Late Night A Dream of Grace The Laying on of Hands

Shape Shifter Awaiting Word Midlife Christmas The Other Writers Block After Hades, Always Persephone ConVersing IX

Short Fiction 5th Edition: Preface 6th Edition: Preface

Through the Fire Recovering from a Good Mother A Man's Adventure in Poetry and Tears The ghosts in These Muscles Warning To My Wife A Fire of Cold Ashes The Visitation The Water Moans Love Song from the Country of Memory In the Company of Men The Light Through the Peaks Mother and Son: First Meeting The Vision Grieving for My Parents Someone's Wife Breasts The Skinny Man Does not Swim Bats and Butterflies The Waters of My Dreams Waking to Dreams Recovering from a Good Mother

Text & Commentary I have Dreamed a Hundred Whispers Morning Prayers, Night Prayers #6 The Drying Leaves Cancer The Drawing The Light through the Peaks Found Things

Forms of Love

Ache

"I have this little ache inside."--R.

If you've got this little ache
inside, I know the cure:

boil us both a pot of tea,
then pour it on our feet;

pull back the drapes for neighbor's
eyes then make the windows bleed;

burn your busy mops and brooms
and let the dust collect

in corners where spiders lay
a thousand eggs to eat;

dice up your husband's Playboys
and cook us up a stew;

don't forget to leave the meat
to stink on countertops;

kick your kids' stuffed dinosaurs
into the cactus bed;

force them to kneel in century
plants to save their innocence;

clearcut the trees in your backyard
and cover it with rocks;

hide dynamite in buster's
bowl and chuckle when he chews.

You say you've got an ache
inside--well, I know it too:

my lover, my torturer,
forget about what's good and right.

If you've got this little ache
inside, I know the cure.