After James Dickey You’re dissecting a brain. A sheep’s brain. You make a sagittal cut, halving it like an heirloom tomato. But it’s not an heirloom tomato. It’s a sheep’s brain, and it smells like science. You take the left half in your hand. You have the urge to casually toss it in the air and catch it like a… Read more →
careening the marbled mind down mathematical koans: What is the sound of 18 million miles clapping 82,818,537 kilometers away? Sunset compresses far below our feet, first lights of the Bay Bridge create a silver river below, my daughter’s hair trails uncombed. She grumbled her way up the hill and now she’s a conduit of wonder and light. We witness this… Read more →
After Jose Hernandez Diaz After my first psychotic episode, I turned into a common house broom. My long, sturdy handle was made of previously loved wood, and sleeked into a bunch of fastened blonde crunchy yet pliable corn husks. I swept the floors of all my neighbors, gathering up their stories, memories, worries, and hopes, then reduced them into neat… Read more →
If I didn’t know the words molten and crag how could I refer to the world beyond my line of sight? Breadcrumbs and visions fall from my chapped lips: great buildings leaning against one another for support, lakes draining, flaming comets crisscrossing smoke trails above, dinosaurs returning just as the first stars note their absence. Another day greeting my neighbors… Read more →
i’ve seen them crawl up from the lake draped in weeds whispering names and something worse than obscenities hungry gums flecked with gleaming scales can’t you hear them march in time the way the mud slurps with every step they are coming they are coming the faint handprint on the mailbox is no accidental collusion of rain and grime their… Read more →
Pink swamp beyond, claw me down to unstitch itches, full of opal emeralds and intact eyelids. Cold machine I cradle, please release the needle, poor tapered worm we are. In and unearthed. Slander the ragged remainder—good folk are fine, but a closed corpse can’t be crawled into. From below holler our apologizers, as I could reach out and take their… Read more →
Here she is now, all notepad and ears, Telling me a thought is a thought is a thought Is not a rose. Is not love, loss, or identity. I want to say: Rose is the colour of everything rose-coloured. I’m thinking: it can’t hurt, it’s only a dream. Mouth corner rising, she makes a note. Something in me takes up… Read more →
Many times in your Bronx apartment, I showered with the window open to the five-story tree that broke your cousin’s fall when he leapt from the roof on purpose. He said it wasn’t the branches that caught him, but his dead father’s trench coat. What I didn’t tell you was sometimes I heard it flapping, buttons clicking against buttons, and… Read more →
And true enough, sometimes I imagine spiders with a longing unbecoming of an arachnophobe: Wrest eight knuckled legs from nothing weave ten fingers over my eyes stealing looks amidst primal shudders. What a dirty thrill. What a thing to write home about this existing in a calamitous light. It is as if, you say, you want to die. This, after… Read more →
this was somebody’s idea of paradise. a history loaded heavy with douglas fir, suspenders, and trucker hats. the townsfolk reminisce about industry. about the one log load. old growth giants hauled from a washboard to the lumber mills. these days, most are husks of broken windows and spray paint. the woods are crowded and dry as matchsticks. and the trucks… Read more →