Contents
Make Your Home in the Imperfect Present
I: If I Told You
My Life in a Coffee Cup
If I Told You
Kafka’s Hands
How Many Secrets?
Ammonite
The Pangolin
8.3 Billion Metric Tons
Ode to Chufa
Passepartout
Ode to Pubic Hair
Black Leather Backpack
The Loneliness of His Death, the Death of His Loneliness
To Wait and to Hope
How Do I Fix the World
Courage!
II: Appearances
Self-Portrait as Corncrake
Midnight in Paris
Cinquains to Pablo
At the Fountain of the Fallen Angel in Retiro Park
Cancelled Letter to Antoni Gaudí
It Takes So Little
Evening Storms
Cinquains of Doubt
Innocence
Trilogy of Hands
Trilogy of Doubt
Doubtful
Doubtful Profile
Three-Quarter View
Trilogy of Death
Trilogy of Tears and Smiles
III: Oblique Strategies
Trust in the You of Now
Turn It Upside Down
Emphasize the Flaws
Only a Part, Not the Whole
The Most Important Is Most Easily Forgotten
Give Way to Your Worst Impulse
Accretion
Not Building a Wall but Making a Brick
Do We Need Holes?
Repetition Is a Form of Change
Do Nothing for as Long as Possible
Where’s the Edge?
Honor Thy Error as a Hidden Intention
Overtly Resist Change
Be Extravagant
Use Filters
Reverse
Don’t Break the Silence
IV: From the Dream Notebooks
My Life as an Open Air Temple
A Dream Is One-Sixtieth Part of Prophecy
I Have Dreamt a Dream and I Do Not Know What It Is
A Good Dream Should Be Kept in Mind so It Will Be Fulfilled
There Is No Dream Without Frivolity
All Dreams Follow the Mouth
A Dream That Has Not Been Interpreted Is Like a Letter That Has Not Been Read
It May Be Spring
The Water Where I Have Not Swum
Mitzvah at Gordon Beach
To the One Who Tames
To the Ram’s Horn I Cannot Sound
Two Stones
Notes
Acknowledgments