Song of a Reformed Headhunter

Puerto Rico To see the bioluminescence, light without fire, sit tight in your canoe and stir the dark water. A tiny meteor will appear in the atmosphere of the bay. Stir again, this time not with your paddle but with your hand, and direct the sentence of the second meteor. You are then angel and patient.

Northern Mariana Islands These islands have names-- not Asuncion, Saipan, Tinian, Pagan, but older ones-- Launch Pad, Mission Field, Way Station, The Secret of My Heart's Desire, and one that is possibly mistranslated as Dandelions Growing Out of a Boot.

Guam Ferried over by a military transport, the brown tree snake has nearly killed off the ko'ko' bird, now only bred in captivity. Forests, where the secretive rail once ran, its elongated body slipping through the receptive herbage, are empty of bird whistle but full of spiders and swathed like a bride in spider webs.

American Samoa He charged at the ball and at the quarterback. He sacked all our defenses. He made America sit up and look for their maps. “I have a fear of being average,” said the tight end. He shot himself dead in the chest, the warrior, said good-bye with the lyrics of “Who I Ain’t.” Born in Oceanside, California, but he came from the territory with one zip code. in memory of Junior Seau (1969 – 2012)

District of Columbia Not real, marmoreal city, mammary gland, memory land, march of the living and the dead, the murmur in the corridor that changes everything. The reflecting pool, humming tunelessly, steals your face. * Lady Bird (2017), written and directed by Greta Gerwig, is a good movie, but not a great one. Why the fuss over it? Saoirse Ronan, as the Sacramento high school senior stumbling through her first romance, family entanglements, and college application, makes it very watchable. Laurie Metcalf is wonderful as Mom. Lucas Hedges, Lady Bird's first boyfriend who turns out to be gay, is a natural actor. He also appears as the nephew in Manchester by the Sea . In Valentina's Wedding (La Boda de Valentina, 2018), a silly but enjoyable romp, an all grown-up Ryan Carnes as Valentina's gringo fiance. Still has the body he showed off in Eating Out .

Wyoming Here you can stand over the Continental Divide, rivers to the left, rivers to the right, and feel the irreconcilable differences. Rain stands here too, in this great Basin, not running to any ocean, true, but moving, nevertheless. The rain sinks here into the parched ground, or else evaporates into the air.

Wisconsin This is the house that Wright built and rebuilt and rebuilt after each ravagement, the limestone from a local quarry, the plaster mixed with sienna to resemble the sandy banks of the river, the shingles weathered to the color of silver-grey trees, the windows placed to let the sun in at every hour of the day. This is the house that houses Japanese prints and Ming vases, a council circle re-de-signed by an immigrant Dane, and bears the name of a Welsh bard, which means Shining Brow. This is the house that built other houses and the centrifugal house for Non-Objective art, later named after its founding Jew. This is the house that students come to every summer to study how to build a house.