I scan a coworker’s bookshelves, my back to the revelry of guests I don’t know well, and never will. Ninety minutes is enough time spent steeped in the loneliness of this Mission District Christmas party. I drain my second margarita, bid the host goodbye and dash to Church and 16th to catch the last MUNI train of the night. I’m… Read more →
A woman holding a stack of dresses and jeans enters the fitting room and asks if I’m helping out my mom. It’s 1995 and I’m eighteen years old. I’ve been a sales associate at this department store for over a year. I point to my blue name tag, say, “No, I work here.” She smiles and remains by the entrance. … Read more →
My father long-gone, I open one of his books, Bonnard or Vuillard—torn paper flutters to the floor. His drawing of two cows, one little & one big, their outlines wobbly as calf legs. A door opens to that day when he told me stories about a year he spent roping cattle, being a cowboy. We rode through the valley. Cigarette… Read more →
I’m on your bed right now. You’re playing some niche game— your latest obsession. The room smells like toast. You’re heating up frozen pizza, but all I can smell is the crust burning. We’re still young— your sheets haven’t been washed since you moved in two months ago. Your pillow is yellow, suspiciously so, but you’ve bought a new one… Read more →
COYOTE COMES with the crack of a branch. With the brush of breeze through lace. With the mothwing flutter of light on your cheek. With the passing of sand through your hands. Coyote comes in the shape of a question: Trespasser? Or trespassed upon? Look behind, he asks. At crossings you made. Scars you left on the land. Barbed wire… Read more →
A grandfather would, I’m told, stand before the mound made by those big red ants. Black loafers, white socks, pleated slacks his nice pants, a cotton white short sleeve t, slicked black hair, a pack of cigarettes in his right pocket, a book of matches left. Having siphoned gasoline from the Plymouth through a cut length of garden hose cut… Read more →
10 I’m dreading her leaving before the plane even lands. I take pictures and label them last dinner, last gelato, last hug, like my daughter is dying instead of home from college for a short visit. There are awkward hellos from her two brothers. She kisses the dogs. I remember how much she misses them when she’s in the hospital…. Read more →
I don’t think I really understood the cash value of my PhD until my mom’s cat died a month before my dissertation defense. The diagnosis — terminal — had come just two weeks prior, delivered under the piss-yellow lights of the West Des Moines vet’s office. The odd, aggressive behavior, sudden penchant for eating cardboard, inexplicable but seemingly pointed campaign… Read more →