I Sleep With A Glass Of Water

I Know When A Story Is Finished When There Is Not A Single Thing More I Can Think To Do To It. And Since I Know At The Start What The Last Line Will Be, I Know When I've Reached That Point As Logically As I Can That It's Finished. As For The Rewriting-it's Not Foolproof, Of Course, But If You're Honest About Having Thought Of Every Possibility And You Still Come Back To What You Have, What More Can You Do?

I Get Rational When I Panic.

I Meet A Person, And In My Mind I'm Saying Three Minutes; I Give You Three Minutes To Show Me The Spark.

Maybe This Is Not A Come-down-from-the-ledge Story. But I Tell It With The Thought That The Woman On The Ledge Will Ask Herself A Question, The Question That Occurred To That Man In Bogota. He Wondered How We Know That What Happens To Us Isn't Good?

Then The Children Went To Bed, Or At Least Went Upstairs, And The Men Joined The Women For A Cigarette On The Porch, Absently Picking Ticks Engorged Like Grapes Off The Sleeping Dogs. And When The Men Kissed The Women Good Night, And Their Weekend Whiskers Scratched The Women's Cheeks, The Women Did Not Think Shave, They Thought Stay.