at the new indian restaurant downtown, they fire up the tandoor. half tablespoon pepper, one teaspoon salt. that’s it? you make a joke about shitting your pants. i laugh, say sorry, pay for our meal. can we stop by the grocery store so i can buy enough chillies to burn your cold heart? not spicy enough. my bad, i thought… Read more →
Cool summer spills down my daughter’s chin and throat. All those flavonoids breaking the blood-brain barrier. I used to buy eight pounds from a guy with a truck, carry them home cradled in their cardboard beds. Sometimes, the flesh yielded, other times, I tore it off the stone. Sometimes, I let the sun dry the juice on my face, other… Read more →
Mindy offers to come. Husband offers to watch our kids. Mom offers to help. She and Dad haven’t been in the same room since Josh’s bris six months ago. Dad tried to murder himself three months ago. By that I mean: he stabbed himself in the chest in the front seat of his powder-blue Mercedes. I suspect Mom views him… Read more →
In the beginning of consciousness, I sat with you at the Suffolk school playground marble drain, we felt joy—not winning—not losing. You, were present. Welcomed into the front room to sit. I wanted your mind to film the glass deer, crocheted covers; listen to the Jim Reeves 33 LP. I did not see you race by me in your teens…. Read more →
(Content Warning: alcoholism & relapse) You reach for me in the darkest hour of the night and wrap your arms around me. It’s instinctive, an old habit your body hasn’t yet unlearned. Strange. Just this afternoon, sunlight slanted through the blinds, catching in the smoke curling from your cigarette, you looked at me from across our home office and said… Read more →
The future is a liar. The future is a multi-level marketing scheme on its best days, and a full-blown con artist on its worst. The future showed up on every first day of school I’ve ever had, and found me rocking a fit that always looked a little flyer laid out on the bed the night before. Ah yes, the… Read more →
Grass is yellow and sodden. There are memos. I do not receive these. There is a way of doing things that I am not doing. Bowling attracts the wrong crowd. Squirrels are bad actors. When they eat birdseed, they revel in theft. The public is not to be trusted. Candles smell like cologne. They are labelled vanilla. Bowlers bowl with… Read more →
The first big love and second big love of my life were both named after the moon. This has always made sense to me because I am the sun: I am hotheaded, I am warm (both figuratively and literally), I am the center of my own universe. This has always made sense to me because in high school, we learned… Read more →