Cover -- Half-title -- Title -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- "Write to Your Unknown Friends" -- 1. From Our House to Your House -- It's Hard to Know Where to Begin -- From Our House to Your House -- Growing Up in a Small Town -- Easter, 1948 -- Hands -- Ridl Was Once Spelled Hridl -- A Midsummer Night's Dream -- My Father Was in Love with Peggy Lee -- Open to the Psalms -- The Steps of Pittsburgh -- It Wasn't Folklore -- Thinking of Yahweh During a Winter Thaw -- On My Parents' Sixty-fifth Wedding Anniversary -- An Afternoon Visiting My Mother in Assisted Living -- The Days -- A New Beginning -- The Letters -- Fractals: A Nocturne -- Searching Again for My Father -- 2. The Enormous Mystery of Couples -- Suite For the Turning Year -- On Going with My Wife to Her Doctor -- The Enormous Mystery of Couples -- Theme and Variations -- Oh I Suppose -- Here in the Time Between -- Practicing to Walk Like a Heron -- Some Notes Taken While the Media Try to Come to Terms with the Life and Death of Michael Jackson -- With -- Morning Rounds -- Christmas, the Execution of Tookie Williams -- The Neighbors -- William Blake's Hiccoughs -- After Talking It Over -- Just Before He Had Another Panic Attack -- Mid-October Morning -- Ron Howard's on the Cover of AARP -- Take Love for Granted -- My Wife Has Sent Me an Email -- A Quiet Study in Black and Gray -- Speaking Objectively in Winter -- Raking the Duck Weed -- Putting Away the Santas -- Hardship in a Nice Place -- The End of This Year -- Have You Heard the One About? -- It's April and It Should Be Spring -- Epilogue -- Interlude: "Hey Skinny, the Circus Is in Town!" -- Circus: Late Summer -- Outside the Center Ring -- Grouse of the Circus Boss -- After the Lion Tamer -- Sequins -- Daydreams of the Catcher of the Queen of the Air -- Suzie.

The Death of the Queen of the Air -- Circus Cook -- The End of the Fat Lady -- Death in the Dog Act -- The Children of the Lion Tamer -- Roustabout -- Clown -- The Balloon Man -- Night on the Circus Lot -- Winter Quarters -- 3. The Hidden Permutations of Sorrow -- The Two Chairs in the Garden -- What Are You Supposed to Do Anyway? -- Within the Moment of Indefinite Suffering -- The Hidden Permutations of Sorrow -- Listening to Chopin in Early Winter -- At the "As the Spirit Moves" Poetry Reading -- Instead of Planting Roses -- The Man Who Loved Mulch -- After Midnight: Insomnia's Solace -- A Man I Know -- "Moose. Indian." -- Several Old People Are Walking by Our Window -- A List of Possibilities in an Uncertain Order -- He Brings Home Everything -- Monet's "Winter on the Seine, Lavacourt" -- Preludes -- Another Puppet Show -- The Reunion -- The Dogs' Door Is at the Far End of the House -- The Artist to the Canvas -- A Christmas List for Santa -- But He Loved His Dog -- A Cabinet of Natural Curiosities -- The Yearling with the Broken Leg -- Another Day in Your Life -- The Knitters -- Drinking Black Tea Early in the Morning -- For Lenny -- A Generous Welcome -- After Spending the Morning Baking Bread -- Return to a Place I Don't Remember -- The Heron -- Back_Cover.