Frontmatter
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
INTRODUCTION
Ancestors
PROSE
My Father's God
The Actor Prepares
The Night Maggie Saw God and Sal Barnum Too
Sizes
An Etruscan Catechism
Lamb Soup
Marco's Marcoroni
The Guest
POETRY
East River Nocturne
On the Square
Autobiography
Tea at Aunt's
Cento at Dawn
L'Esiliatu (The Exile)
The Cellar Twenty Years Later
Minotaur
The Garden of the Apocalypse
In the Golden Sala
Father's Days
In Tunis I Walked through Halfaween
Shinto Mama
Spanish Steps
Nana's Earrings
The Sacred and Profane
PROSE
Against Gravity
My Friend, Angelo Ralph Orlandella
That Winter Evening
Sanctifying Grace
POETRY
Luisa and Buffalo Bill
The Concept of God
My Father at Eighty-five
The Caves of Love
Linens
Love and Anger
PROSE
The Two Uncles
The Prince of Racalmuto
Wild Heart
A Conversation with Camille Paglia
Big Heart
Permanent Waves
Perfect Hatred
POETRY
Inside the Inside of the Moon
Why I Drive Alfa Romeos
Walking My Son on the Beach
The Skeleton's Defense of Carnality
Birth and Death
PROSE
A Marvelous Feat in a Common Place
Where It Belongs
Unraveled
Mama Rose
Cairns
Card Palace
POETRY
Planting a Sequoia
É si riuniscono, questi vecchi . . .
Grandmother in Heaven
Art and Self
POETRY
Cape Clear
Language Lesson
Lizard-Tree
Athletes of God
Libretto
Books, how silent you are
Requiem for a Practical Possum
Self-Portrait as Woman Posed on Flowered Couch
Happenstance
War Song
About the Authors