The jowls of a man of knowledge are weighed down by a hefty lifetime of facts. He is a man of damp bitterness and answers. The verge of too much thought can wear him down to his bed midday. But don’t expect him to lie still for more than twenty minutes. There is nothing illusive about his pursuits. Every day… Read more →
I’m telling. You could hardly tell us apart. We looked identical. Hey twin. Picked last like the worst fruit we stood in back the tallest split to different teams. I’m falling apart. Old shale buckling above a volcanic cellar. Sharecropper miner of sedimentary slag. Slate chattering down my side. I’m a late bloomer obsidian finally glassing my station. Bonafide. Hedge… Read more →
There are hate crimes plus engraved signs encased with cement lines, that cement lines which are bought with black lives. The blood spilled only fills the groove upon the tossed quarters. Pitched by the kids courted by the kids responsible for the kid, whose back toss is now lost for about the same amount of money. What’s funny, is now… Read more →
says the bottom bulb’s full blown, calls it bun. It’s ancient. Only a few months ago my neurologist showed me scans of my sinus cavity, the sphere of fluid nestled there, probably not growing. This was the not- dangerous cyst. He said sensitive, overactive, any pain, lots of headaches? I told him no before remembering rising in airplanes, how the… Read more →
This is not the neighborhood for you, my ex-friend said. Eyed through the coffee shop’s sun-collared window a murder of crowing guys storm-trooping down the street as I lit a smoke forgetting I was in AmeriKa. Ex has no idea she’s a dog. She had set out flowered tea cups for coffee the day I wanted to leave my husband…. Read more →
The day it snowed in the Sahara is the day you left us. The honey- amber dunes morphed into the white knuckles of mountain peaks. As the flakes were falling, you were dropping F-bombs across the house, sending the kids running for cover, hands pressed over ears, heads in their laps. In the Sahara, the sandman slept under a blanket… Read more →
Spring from your mother, corded, thrashing, gasping to be set free. Breathe on your own. Howl and flail, fists knotted. Clamp onto your mother’s breast, suck and suck until comfort snags you. Suck more. Grab earrings, tug hair, bite your sister’s arm. Her shoulder. Her calf. Raise your arms to be lifted, cradled. Hurl toys. Leap from the couch, collide… Read more →
I carried a doll into class today, buried in my briefcase like a dead bird. I’ve never carried a dead bird in my briefcase, but I’ve buried feathers and the most fragile bones in my mouth so when I speak, I offer the chance to fly. These fictions are what I tell myself in the deep dark but the doll… Read more →
Blur: figment of my imagination, a ghost of her, the imprint in my mind. Her face there, vivid, the second the scalding water hit my shoulders. Her face then, thirty-some years ago, since that’s how I see her even now—young but vaguely angry, her lips a halo of wrinkles, like the jagged rays I drew around yellow circles to show… Read more →