Cover -- Title Page -- Copyright -- Contents -- I. The Fret Cycle -- Fret (A Tune Near Composition in the Studio) -- A Note from Cathy at Yaddo -- The Lesson for Paul on Catherine Clarke's Birthday -- Fret in the Woods -- Table Notice -- Fret Skips Town for a Gig in New London -- Fret Deep in the Woods -- Fret Leaves Yaddo -- Ghost of Fret at High Table: Mansion -- Fret's News from the Front: Yaddo After -- Martini Glasses Galore -- Fret Shows Up at the Metropolitan -- The List: Yaddo -- Fret Leaves Yaddo in Disguise -- Fret Having Survived Modernity -- Fret Discovers the Blues, Again -- Ass -- Fret in Studio with the Ancestors -- Fret Find the Instrument of Archipelago -- Mt. Pleasant Local Library -- Fret Finds the Open Field -- II. Use Trouble -- A Photographic Guide to the City -- Use Trouble -- Portrait: (Jay Saunders Redding at Sayles Hall) 5/26/97 -- Esther -- Triumphs -- Homage to Jay Saunders Redding on His Natal Day: 10 13 04 -- Praisesong for BB -- Goodbye to All That -- Public Letter: Visible Ink -- Dubonnet -- Archives: The Public Library I -- Archives: The Public Library II -- Legend of Jeannie Turner -- TCAT Serenade -- Sherley Anne Williams: 1944-1999 -- Chloe: Black Pastoral Luminous -- Handmade Book on the Theme of the Beloved -- Pigeon -- Artist on a Cellphone (Yaddo) -- Vote (Providence) -- Marilyn -- Tattoo -- Copenhagen -- Notes on Our Resident Humanist: Mahler B. Ryder, 1937-1992 -- Ostseebad Ahrenshoop -- Ribs -- Charlotte and Nathan Exchange: 50th Anniversary -- Charlotte to Nathan -- Notes on the Hopi -- Critical Mass -- Hemingway's Iceberg -- Saint Dolores (Phillips Exeter Academy) -- "Days Remaining"/Bloom's Day, Dublin -- Freud: Lessons on Boundaries -- George J. Makari Blues -- Songbirds (Habitat) -- "Ponta de Areia" [Brazil] -- Tagore (Nobel, 1913) -- On Brodsky's Collected -- Three Poems: October 17, 2004.

I. Archival Secrets of Mary Lincoln -- II. At the Square -- III. The Secret Lore of Will's Presidency -- Zen: The Trainride Home to the Welcome Table -- The Flight Home -- Tatum -- Baseball (Orb) -- Josh Gibson (Master of National Past) -- Blackjack -- Look Backwards: Henry Aaron's Hammer -- A Centenary Ode to EKE: The Duke of Ellington -- Ray Charles Robinson Dead at 73 -- Womb of Space (Yaddo) -- What I Know This Very Day -- Along Came Betty -- Repeat Button -- Digesting Dexter Gordon at 80 -- Goodbye Pork Pie Hat -- Photo: Letter (Joel Chandler Harris) -- Ernesto Victor Antonucci -- 'Craft'Talk, Vermont Studio Center -- Elder -- On the Theme of Self-Knowledge and Education "In Society" Though Not Defined by Falsehoods -- Joseph Santos Ileto -- The Broke and the Unbroken -- Jacuzzi Serenade -- On Arrival -- Christine Frey's Resurrection -- Open Studio -- Iowa (1961) Or "How to USE TROUBLE" [Writers Workshop] -- Shirley of Little Falls [1961, Iowa City, IOWA]: A Profile in "Intaglio" -- Philip Roth -- "American Masters: PBS" (Ralph Ellison) -- Neighbors -- Leonard Brown, Musician/Teacher -- Richard Davis's Trampolines -- Year of the FirePig in Chinese New Year -- Eulogy Framed as Requiem Mass on the American Frontier -- Modulations on a Theme . . . for Josephus Long -- Eva's Song at the End -- Los Angeles Coliseum Olympic Swimming Pool, 1960 -- Frederick Armstrong Hetzel -- Zambia -- Massey's Ministry -- The Tank and Its Narrators -- Judge & Jury: A Saga on Dramatics of the Persona Off Stage -- The Revolutionary Garden -- Royce Hall -- Gwendolynian Staccato Dance -- Muse -- Spencer Trask's Den (Yaddo) -- Spoon of WNN III: Lost Reflections on My iPod No Longer Shuffling -- "Newk" While He's Still Alive and Playing -- Horacescope -- Miles Davis Shirt: Monterey Jazz Festival -- "On Green Dolphin Street" [after Miles Ahead] -- The Life of Jackie McLean.

Blues for a Colored Singer: Milt Jackson -- Interstate 80 Freeway Return -- Last Song [in Memoriam: Michael Micciche III] -- Libation for Elvin Jones [1927-2004] -- Dexter Leaps In -- The Book on Trane -- A Coltrane Poem: 9 23 98 -- A Coltrane Poem: 9 23 98 (2) -- Coltrane Notes on the Millennium 9 23 2000 -- Sermon on O'Meally -- Larry Doby -- Panhandler (New Haven) -- Galveston: 9 8 1900 -- Notes on the Long Poem (Tuscaloosa, AL) -- John Killens at Yaddo -- Haircut on the Solstice -- Ten Years of Freedom: South African Film Festival, N.Y.C. -- Certainties -- Hooded Cobra Eyes: Beguiled by Pitch of the True Reed -- Bouillabaisse -- "Ars Poetica" -- Bellow Berryman James Arlington Wright -- III. I Do Believe in People -- Poem on Contents of Harper/Johnson Kin -- Horoscope: 3 12 98 -- Horoscope: 10 3 98 -- Driving Up on Van Aken Blvd. -- My Mother Said: For My Sister, Katherine -- Rome, New York -- My Aunt Ella Mae -- Ice -- Snapshot -- Sacrament -- Elizaville -- Subcode -- Five Gallon Water Bottle (Oster Is the Best): A Story, a Tale -- Couch -- Why I Don't Do Surveys -- "Sleeping under a Wool Blanket Here" -- Patrice among the Elders -- Getting My Head Shaved by My Son at Odd Hours -- Glass (Crystal) -- Bermuda Triangle: for Patrice Cuchulain Harper -- Papa's Day: Notes On Partition: WWH: Father's Day Greeting '99 -- Broadside -- (Omaha) UTAH BEACH, FRANCE, 5 8 92 -- Josh Gibson's Bat -- Portrait off Son at Rhinebeck Train Station -- Paris -- Mama: To Son -- Katherine Louise Johnson Harper -- Headset -- "Juneteenth" -- Indispensable Meditation on the Family Tree -- The Latin American Poem -- Airport -- Altura -- Maroons -- When I Was a Boy -- Pull-ups at PS 25 -- Hives -- Iowa -- My Mother's Bible I -- My Mother's Bible II -- Pigeons -- Caretaking Supreme -- The Patriarch, W. Warren Harper, Circa 1938 -- Cathair on His Blackwatch Jacket.

Manhattan Beach -- Homage to Flight #103, Pan-American -- Commencement Address: For Jonathan Paul Harper (1941-1977) -- Attributes And Eccentricities of W. Warren Harper -- Meditation on Catskill Creek -- Talk Therapy on John Milton -- Lovesong -- 1965 Watts Riot -- Domestic Relations (Defendant saith) -- The Red Dress: 12 24 65 -- Walking Tour (Lake Windermere) Studies in Romantic Poetry -- Walking Tour (Lake Windermere): Its Aftermath -- The Squire of Taunton -- Jaxon's First Song: 5 21 2000 -- Natal Visit on the Theme of Shoes -- Apologia to Charlotte Scott on Pantops Mountain -- Forty: 6 28 06 -- Loyalty -- Paul Urabe [1938-2003] -- Yaddo, Mrs. Ames and Black Men -- Index of Titles.