These poems, written over a thirty-year period, have a common thread running through all of them. That thread is the author: the person and the writer. The term “articles of association” is a legal one. It has a precise definition, but I have used it in a very loose and affectionate way. These poems are about nonphysical possessions, be they as mundane as a particular day or a favorite writer or as complicated as my relationship with my father. They have in some little or large way associated themselves to me, for better or for worse.