Contents
I. First Gestures
First Gestures
Freight
The Sun Lover
Sinning
Flu
Ghost
A Pass
Bulbs
Onion, Fruit of Grace
The Knowledge of Good and Evil
Eve’s Striptease
Mother Love
The Secrets of Marriage
Storm
Word to Measure Space
Definition: To Fix
Sixth Anniversary
The New Place
Wife of a Resident Alien
Lesson of Hard-Shelled Creatures
Living Large
Before Dawn in October
Our Last Neighborhood in Brooklyn
Loud
On Leaving Brooklyn
II. Map of the Known World
The Use of Allusion
Map of the Known World
July 1969
Ladies’ Night at the Turkish and Russian Baths
Coat of a Visiting Nurse
Lymphoma
Flammable Skirts Recalled
Answer
Why I Ran
How It Looks from South Brooklyn
To Honor the Dead
Houseguest Confession
Brooklyn Bridge Showing Painters on Suspenders,
The Streak
Migraines, for Dad
Learning the Names
How My Father Learned English
Letter to Timothy Russell from Lewisburg
Black Dress
Eve’s Curse
Thinking of Certain Mennonite Women
Boustrophedon
First Bird
Flying Lesson
Acknowledgments