It has been said that a book represents the efforts of not just its author, but of all who have supported that author during the mysterious process of creativity. While there is some built-in hyperbole and false humility to such claims, my legal representatives advise me that I nevertheless would be remiss in not acknowledging those persons who have made it possible for me to accomplish what one dares hope will be reckoned a significant — dare I say unprecedented? — work of creative genius. To wit: let me begin by thanking my fourth and most recent ex-wife, Jane, who provided invaluable comments on early drafts, put up with my less than model behavior during the composition of some difficult portions of this work — and even clumsily soldered electronic components of the keyboard as quickly as I could smash them in my rages at her inability to fully appreciate my true genius. I must also acknowledge her for in the end allowing me the freedom to pursue other muses than herself for the sake of my art, and for enduring the verbal — and, finally, physical — attacks from one of those former muses who, following our irretrievably broken relationship, was tragically unable to get on with her life the way she might have. Thanks, again, Jane. You’re the best. I must also acknowledge the contributions to this work of my third ex, (also a Jane), who was somewhat tragically and quite unexpectedly carried away in a spring flashflood while fixing me a cup of tea just the way I like it, with extra lemon and prepared out of earshot so as not to disturb me. That the ancient riverbed where she had set up her campfire should so suddenly revert to its previous boiling vigor was, I am convinced, just as surprising to her as it was to the gentlemen whom I eventually hired to fish her out while I completed the lyrical chapter which, had she survived, surely would have been her favorite. I also wish to thank her for humming my favorite childhood tunes the way Mommy — (okay, a Jane) used to. I also here acknowledge my second ex — stout, capable Martha! — for her efforts on my behalf over the years. I wish especially to thank her for shingling our vast roof, and for — God bless her — deftly putting a bullet in the head of the neighbors’ distracting Weimeraner, allowing me to finish a chapbook of poems that today is still available in limited edition. I should also acknowlege publicly her touching willingness to settle an old score on my behalf by traveling to Chicago to moon a past president of PEN who had refused to return my phonecalls. I also wish to thank her for shielding me from the burden of raising our three children — so successfully, in fact, that I was recently quite unable to identify my eldest youngster in a police lineup, nor to recognize his hoarse, plaintive cries for my head; and when she could no longer afford to pay our lawyer, for working out a system of payment with the laywer she had hired to defend her in the lawsuit by the aforementioned past president — pulling the lawyer’s children on a vintage sledge to their snowboarding lessons and, after proofreading my galleys, returning to his house to weed his charming, serpentine drive, and to polish his whimsically impractical copper gutters and drainpipes. Suffice it to say that the prison matrons who attend her know little of the depth of character of this woman in their dank, stinky precincts. Brava, plucky lady! I should also be remiss in forgetting to mention my first wife (not a Jane), whose efforts on my behalf would beggar the description of a less talented author. There is so much to say, but let me at least here acknowledge her ultimate effort on my behalf, that of cycling to Iran to assassinate the Imam who had issued the fatwa against the writer who in the end turned out not to have been me after all. If her jailers allow her a copy of this book in the care packages her parents have been sending her and she chances upon this page I should like to say that in the first moment that I am satisfied with the second draft of my current poem-cycle I will trouble Holden, my current muse/caretaker, to turn her attentions to your plight. In the meantime I trust she has answered your letters. The several months’ delay has, I am told, mostly to do with Holden’s touching uncomfortableness at handling the rough toiletpaper — however unsullied — upon which you chose to compose your (also touching) requests for help. It is a statement of pure, legal fact that without the help of these women the world would have been deprived of the work on the following pages. And so perhaps it is not so much I who ought to thank them, but you, the lucky reader of those pages, to which I humbly trust you will now turn with all alacrity.