The News
it always takes longer than I want for anything to happen in direct proportion to the depth of my longing, which is not to suggest that if I stop insisting the world cough up what it owes me right now, it will happen; au contraire, the forces of watchfulness will be on to my game and make me wait, teach the lesson of submission to the one thing I care about, and just when I think I’ve finally got whatever it is I’ve been looking for, it turns into a squall of hummingbirds, disappears down the red throat of morning.

Braking News
while big cranes slip beneath the Bay Bridge, we two play hooky, out-of-practice after I don’t know how long of hurling Homeric epithets at each other, my green-eyed Econoline van, wearing sweats and peeling down quickly to basic moves that holler back to an earlier time when you weren’t taking pills to keep your heart going, and when I had a full set of lungs; I pedal with my tongue, you inside my mouth; we speed down the hill, brake for hesitation, come crashing into each other. On one side of the bed as you stretch out, I think you must be a cold black star, collapse, and leave me alone.

Bad News
and for years, I sat around believing you’d take action, that everything was going to change, but the exercise machine remained a clothes hanger, the goggles never made it to the pool, and I never made it to your bed, only the breathing machine that slept with you regulating each sigh while you waited for the father you never knew to come home.

Good News
there are always drugs: Lanoxin, Lasix, Carvedilol, Tolinase; your every day over-the-counter Tylenol Extra-Strength, Tylenol Migraine, Tylenol for Right Brain, Aspirin to take every day for the rest of your life, codeine, morphine if you're on a medical plan or have a good dentist, in-your-eye designer shots of Botox, pain-killers, depressants, uppers, downers, antihistamines, glazed maple donuts at two in the morning.

News Update
finished swearing up and down a Targét parking lot, phoned my friends and authored messages to an old e-mail list announcing how I’d decided to give up the whole damn thing forever, forget about whatever “it” happened to be at that particular moment, except whatever “it” was, bugged me to the height of my crotch; so I take a ride to the Wine Country. Stay in Calistoga where I soak in a heated pool, listen to frogs all night practice their croaking, and I realize they’re speaking my language (!) and I get everything they say, like love me, love me.