Iʹd never seen a truck so up close, felt its heat, the word MACK in caps at my left shoulder. I was trying to cross Houston Street to get to Second Avenue. It was three or four in the afternoon, right after the mail came, and I was going to a café to write, my laptop strapped across my back. Iʹd had an argument with my husband because Iʹd just opened our bills and heʹd ordered porn through our cable company when I was away. Heʹd rented five or six movies—it was over $50. We didnʹt have $50 extra,...

At two a.m. I unlocked our wedding picture from its silver frame and headed to the ocean. I packed a flashlight and a box of matches, but the wind would not let me burn our marriage away. No matter how I positioned our bodies or tried to block us from a brewing tropical storm, his side of the picture wouldnʹt catch fire. His stubborn cummerbund, his bowtie. I tried to set myself in flames. My veil, my fake crystal earrings. The picture was dampening in my hands.

I dug a hole and forced us into it. His tiny sideburns, my...

The spring before my husband left me, I sat next to a flirt on the plane. He was a businessman, kind of cute, with curly black hair. I did my best to flirt back. I was so unused to aggressive men that, though I was flattered, I cringed a bit, too.

ʺYour voice is so sexy,ʺ he said.

ʺWhat?ʺ

ʺI mean, you end each sentence by lowering your voice.ʺ

I realized I was not being myself—I usually ended each sentence in a question. People pointed it out all the time.

I didnʹt reply because I was self-conscious.

I was...

Your house washes away to sea. The whoosh is subliminal. Youʹre terminal. Itʹs totaled. They say youʹre a floozy. The trapeze comes loose. Youʹre ten minutes late. He leaves you. He leaves you for someone else. He betrays you and begs you to stay. He dies. You dye it back to the original color. You move. You become a maven of rot. You sell the antique teapot. You canʹt stop the infection. He wins the election. Reconstructive surgery. You adopt. The child will adapt. You divorce. They use force. You get your cards replaced. Your mortgage balloons into a double...

the heart beats 100,000 times a day, which leads me to think I could write a poem 100,000 words long, each word a beat, each beat how I feel about you. Each word would have two syllables, words mimicking tic-toc, ocean, thunk-thunk—trochee, iamb, a few spondees thrown in for when Iʹm really pounding. I do the math and realize my potential poem will be 300 pages, no punctuation or sentences, only word after word—and it will probably take you a whole day to read, a full 24 hours, and the poem will probably make sense only if you...