Horror Vacui

Book excerpt: I sat in the park eating veggie lo mein, eyes watery with the rotten pleasure of being alive. It had only been minutes since I had complimented the man in the doorway at Ho Wah, telling him that the snake around his neck, which had startled me at first, was beautiful. The trees in the park looked like broccoli, and several people appeared to be in love. A couple played cards in the grass. On the walk home, I noticed a woman whose eyebrows looked tired from trying to say something. // "Shy's poems are abruptly smart, a little violent, devious and ongoing, legendary, mythic, not prosey though a little like the voice of god if god decided to speak more collectively for a while. Shy's poems to me are so so worth it. And they are crafty-also like god."-EILEEN MYLES, author of Chelsea Girls