Hanging the Family Photographs
Master this concept: Nothing is ever really parallel. And this one: It doesn’t matter. No matter what “it” is. How about: Your children aren’t your children. And this: There’s no single word for adult children in any language. Consider: Gaps/oversights/ insufficient oversight. Remember: The pictures will never be straight. And: No one thinks to write who’s who on the backs.
Plum Scarf
I guess I’ve been wondering, said Aunt Luisa, why you had to go and take my plum scarf. What do you mean, your plum scarf? my mother replied. My mother was wearing the plum scarf as she said this. I had never seen a plum outside of a children’s book. I thought it might be something like a dam—something little… Read more →
I Want to Show the World its Poison
(1) Yesterday in our town forty seven pedestrians observed symptoms of seasonal depression sometime between sunup and inevitable sundown. Of them, twelve coped with a half-panic whose queasy threshold is hard to tell of, and let’s not forget the new hires, a couple mangled on a conveyor belt. It’s a small town mind you, and the poison being out of… Read more →
Host Community
The agreement takes place between the host—a location— and a business that leaves mercury and lead, perhaps, the agreement preceding the construction of a factory. A set sum and a guess of what will happen when the plant opens are accepted. One host, my old home, agreed to “no visible plumes” but got three. On a clear day— or not—the… Read more →
Digital Disimpaction
CW: Mentions of violations of sexual privacy, scatological and sexual/kink content Digital disimpaction is a procedure wherein one uses one’s fingers to dislodge or otherwise aid in the removal of stool from one’s rectum. I say “procedure”, but it’s more a last resort after an hour of straining. The first time I hook a finger gingerly into my anal sphincter… Read more →
Coming Home After the Shooting at Brown
1.I know I am home when everything is painted an industrial aqua bluelike we rose up from submersion and with the first breath plottedhighways and overpasses—God’s hefty arteries. When the blue hits meI know I can relax, put my left foot up on the seat, for it’s only thirty-fiveminutes till I reach the bridge, which is essentially twenty-five, whichmay as… Read more →
Paradise
Sequined gowns fit when I was young, their sparkles stitched from TV static. Sheets draped the skin when TV went off for the night or the set broke. TV does not go off ever anymore. But I can’t watch it or the night’s middle pressed against my own. The tree in the window makes me turn to Paradise. That’s the… Read more →
Now You Live at the Hospital
Start bleeding uncontrollably one March evening while watching college basketball. You’reembarrassingly sure you’ve peed in your pants until the couch is forever stained.Stand in the bathtub and call your doctor. Listen to her tell you to get in the cab Right Now.Bleed in the cab’s backseat. Feel bad about the mess. Zip across the Manhattan Bridge. Know you’ll think about… Read more →
Terror Management Theory
Not so much The End of The World as the end of humanity and whatever unlucky animals we take down with us. Every nice day, I think about the last nice day. The final Spring. The last flower that dies in a world with people in it. In the future will there be a human version of the crocodile, the… Read more →