After The Abortion
I bought orange lilies from a hothouse wild flowers that grow man-made in February: delicate beasts
Numbered
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 →
How a Story Unfolds
Just breathing in distant interstate exits, we amble along this road together, flipping up mailbox flags in passing. Farmers’ clothes are scattered on the lines. Traveling dashboard stereos cry over pastureland.
cancer poem #1
5 good hrs w/steroids&oxy in the land of headless people with faces on their chests—comatose explorers thinking theirs are best to lead the way to futures traded for avocado toast & art dispensed from automats mosquito killer sprayed on babies fog & fruit all full of maggots lab-created mechanical maggots cells regenerate in these maggots * * * 2am &… Read more →
cancer poem #2
a snail carries its house on its back & on its back are all our houses— it’s snails all the way down i thought it was turtles said someone no—that’s only in anecdotes we’re living the endtime condors & cormorants have birdhood in common california & eldorado have gold it’s the presence of eyes that perceives but the absence of… Read more →
to turn back to the world
today— false brome today— was a rookie on the force today— himalayan blackberry, invasive, the non-native one today— didn’t pose a threat today— perennial lupine today— “objectionably reasonable” today— wild strawberry wrentit nuptials today— mistook her handgun for a taser today— yellow glandweed, skipper butterfly atop tufts of melic today, unrest, racial today— wild radish today— dijon kizzee sticky monkeyflower… Read more →
Road Runner
So my kid is watching Saturday morning cartoons and says to me, Road Runner looks dumb, and I stop answering work emails that I shouldn’t even be reading because it’s the weekend, and I mull this over and ask her, Sweetie, what’s so dumb about Road Runner? and I hit pause on the remote and think about driving through Tucson… Read more →
Astronomer
Sometimes Jennifer Torrance thinks that her husband Martin’s telescope is an exploration, a method to find a place where he can escape from his impending retirement, their mortgage that needed renewing at the new rates, and his worries about their son, Steve. Martin was never that interested in space, but he had always been fascinated by the stars. “Orion’s up,”… Read more →
Big Bug Picture
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 →