Introduction / Cartagena / Those who clean after / Hyacinthe and the bear / War lullaby / Man at the MOMA / Sweethearts of the rodeo / Shelling the pecans / Lorna Dee Cervantes -- Children of Cain / Sloan-Kettering / Lucky Chow Fun / Gulf music / Confession for Raymond Good Bird / Waves / Juice / Bon voyage / Nowhere / Note to a Pine Ridge girl who can no longer read / Dinner party / Best jeweler / Winged Mercury and the Golden Calf / We started home, my son and I / Departure / Soutine: a show of still lifes / 18 1/2 / Skinny-dipping with Pat Nixon / August/No rain / Dead fiish museum / What for / A genius for grief: memories of Saul Bellow / Diacritical remarks / Himmelen / On hearing a recording of the voice of Walt Whitman / Shepherdess / To the sea at Cadiz / Overwintering in Fairbanks / Models of passion and pain / Black olives / Bridge / Method / Fine distinctions / Seven Marys / Unassigned territory / Flickers of light become the movement of thousands / Fathead's hard times / Bicameral / Lotto / Rear view mirror / Book of Wilson / Bunny gives us a lesson in eternity / Mulatto / Pampkin's lament / Growing wings / Mercy / Stick figure / Subculture of the wrongly accused / Dome / Back to the country with Pulitzer / Bear story / Power point (I) / Blessing the new moon / Way pilots walk / Breaker