My Saturday Night. My Saturday Night Is

There Were So Many Pittsburgh Poets In My Hallway That If, At That Instant, A Meteorite Had Come Smashing Through My Roof, There Would Never Have Been Another Stanza Written About Rusting Fathers And Impotent Steelworkers And The Bessemer Convertor Of Love.

Nothing That Had Ever Happened To Him, Not The Shooting Of Oyster, Or The Piteous Muttering Expiration Of John Wesley Shannenhouse, Or The Death Of His Father, Or Internment Of His Mother And Grandfather, Not Even The Drowning Of His Beloved Brother, Had Ever Broken His Heart Quite As Terribly As The Realization, When He Was Halfway To The Rimed Zinc Hatch Of The German Station, That He Was Hauling A Corpse Behind Him

All Male Friendships Are Essentially Quixotic: They Last Only So Long As Each Man Is Willing To Polish The Shaving-bowl Helmet, Climb On His Donkey, And Ride Off After The Other In Pursuit Of Illusive Glory And Questionable Adventure.

Bina Rolls Her Eyes, Hands On Her Hips, Glances At The Door. Then She Comes Over And Drops Her Bag And Plops Down Beside Him. How Many Times, He Wonders, Can She Have Enough Of Him, Already, And Still Have Not Quite Enough?

Fathering Imposed An Obligation That Was More Than Your Money, Your Body, Or Your Time, A Presence Neither Physical Nor Measurable By Clocks: Open-ended, Eternal, And Invisible, Like The Commitment Of Gravity To The Stars.