A community theater's production of Special Yearnings triggers a string of underground nuclear explosions from St. Louis to Worcester, Massachusetts. A man frantically swats at the blaze that his girlfriend has ignited in his trousers, while her family tries to figure out whether his agonized sign language means "Under the Volcano" or "No Time for Sergeants." Charo, Marianne Faithfull, and Napoleon's sister swap glittering witticisms and pornographic come-ons with languid aesthetes and unhinged suburbanites.

Contents:

• Launch
• Untitled
• A Bedtime Story for My Wife
• Connie and Lester
• Terrible Kindnesses
• The Glove Department
• The Tao of Being White
• He Had One of Those Arooooooga Horns on His Car
• Another Citizen's Holiday
• Memoria in Aeterna
• The Young American Poets
• Blue Dodge
• Untitled
• I'm Writing About Sally
• Octagenerians Die in Crash
• I Smell Esther Williams
• Personal Page
• "La Vida"
• Pangs in the P.M.
• Historical Plays: Sides A and B
• The River
• The Boat Show
• Prose Poem / A Joke for Ginger
• King Pleasure's Mood / A Fable for Laura
• Untitled / A Lullaby for Sharon
• Spin Cycle