I can see by the fresh startle in my grandmother’s eyes that she’s slipping from this earth. All my words float up and pop like bubbles before she can grasp the luster of their meaning. When I mention the needlepoint crafts she used to make, my grandma looks confused, shakes her head like she can’t imagine. My voice rises against… Read more →
One day my mother forgets to tell me my father is dying. This never comes as a surprise. To be born is to leave one body of water for another. To be a daughter is to warn someone before I go to apply for a passport, drugstore lighting the face of a different version of my face. The overnight bus… Read more →
Perhaps it was more of a guideline or else we should have seen the hulking reflection in chrome. Folks are angry about factory robots and confusing Terminator sequels. Robots are supposed to move slowly past Banana Republic. This makes them sneaky. The warning label was in ten languages or none. The parents were absent or lost in phones. The kids… Read more →
the more rock and open space the more it feels completely alive
Ultimately, I am not to be trusted. I once read too many novels and now I’m very twisty with the truth. Prone to toothaches and broken appliances in every cupboard. Hoarding the ties of bedded strangers and discarded wedding rings. Every good piece of horror needs the villainess. Red lipped and vicious with her plotlines. That single red heel floating… Read more →
The Destroyer was not warned about gaining his freshman ten with easy access to bagel Mondays, birthday cakes, and leftover pizza from meetings. The Destroyer decides to raise the mean as his way to self-esteem, and brokers a deal with his local donut shop for a standing order. His popularity is unprecedented and he makes sure to serve up pastries… Read more →
My great-grandfather’s hands fold over his chest light as paper wings all the brownness drained out of them. Folded as we fold dishcloths, as we fold newspapers after they’ve been read, the creases misaligned and quiet. Under the stillness a flurry of fingers stained with shoe polish nails black with oil. Palms caked in cool earth, rabbit fur, cactus spines… Read more →
By four o’clock your apartment is blanketed in warm honey. You lay down for a siesta not because you’re tired, but because she is from red earth, olive groves and orange blossoms because she asks you with her eyes until you give in, because half the city is sleeping because you know what she tells you is true— these are… Read more →
A band I love released another album. I watch them on YouTube while walking my dog. My neighbor Bob appears ashen in a second-floor window framed in waning yellow light. Just home from work, I walk our golden doodle in darkness. Streetlights make long shadows of us. In the video the band looks haggard, older, strung out maybe. They mock… Read more →
Raptors ride the thermals above Dakota. Beyond them, the sun appears closer, colder. Everything warm escapes, returns. One-hundred nations assemble in congress, this time for water, where water is life. And I know this isn’t my song to sing, but I wonder what god saves grace for hunters. Water cannons, fire hoses, nunc pro tunc. this land, once yours, was… Read more →