Rider unhorsed -- On leaving home -- Guide -- The largest of the circus animals -- Oakland work crew -- Worry bone -- Notes on thirty years in the life of a ventriloquist -- The end of reading -- Learning to wait -- American beech -- Inspiration -- Ventriloquist on an off-day -- Panic grass and feverfew -- Phaeton -- Ventriloquist on the moor -- Still life, Young Woman at the Water's Edge -- Park City Grille -- A brief history of the decline -- The origin of pigeons -- One of the dummies at night -- Explanation beginning with a river -- Maker -- Wildflowers of North America -- Self-portrait as a word ending in e -- Notes on colic -- How to make fatherhood lyrical -- Music in my head -- Death of a ventriloquist -- Proof #4 -- Visiting Chicago -- Four planes of experience -- Rattling funicular -- Caravaggio's Peter -- The prayer of glass -- Disabused sonnet -- The perhaps world -- Pull -- The worst first line -- More matter, less art -- The nots
