The second Tuesday.

We Talk About Feeling Sorry for Yourself.

I no longer rented a cellular phone for the rides from the airport. Let them wait, I told myself, mimicking Morrie.

with nasty confrontations between picketers and replacement workers

a cleansing rinse of human  kindness

vermicelli

baklava

I bellowed.

go on the commode

when I mourn

insidious way in which I'm dying

slowly wilt away to nothing

had befriended them

the upcoming trail of a straight man  who killed a gay man after the latter had gone on a TV talk show and said he had a crush on him.

There was a momentary silence.

around your grip

bounce softly

his body sag against me like a big damp loaf

shriveling frame