Destiny Is Destiny The recliner, that witherednavy dog, pancaked to accommodateEsther & her decay. Its adjustable anglesdulled the blades that sliced her guts. When the doctors said bagels are fine butonly plain, I heard the engine turn coldin my grandmother’s mind – Boy,these are some young doctors, and anyway,what’s a bagel without seeds? When she […]
The Aliens Watch the Mother Dream Tonight’s watching arrests us,makes us think. She bolts in bedsuddenly, her heart mammal, muskrat;she’s feral, a small bird with a smallerheart, she wakes, blinks several timesin the dark. We are silent, studying. Watch her there,as we observe what we know is languageunformed beneath her shallow breathing,notice her thought move […]
For All Mankind I assemble shrinesto the porous limestone; corpse of seaspongesundried, scentless; bonerigid around tunnels;ceramics, unglazed—women leak, that is our nature I, myself, still feel the tugof milk, pulling itself through my left breast when the cryof a child catches meaccidentally on a newsfeed weeping the fat ofmy own bodybegging, begging to servein ways […]
Roadkill My girlfriend snaps when she sees roadkill. She used to do a single clap, but that felt weird. Like I was applauding the death, so now she snaps. Just once. I add the sound her fingers make to the list of things I love about her. Decide to start doing it too (snapping), and […]
The Story of Art We all supported Mom going back to college—that wasn’t the issue. She’d devoted her life to others—raising four sons, filling in at Dad’s shop, keeping grandchildren. At sixteen she’d helped start a labor union at the Friendly’s mayonnaise factory, still the only unionized business in Foote, South Carolina. She deserved something […]
Last Summer Home Inspired by “What’s Love Got to Do?” by Richard Blanco All that summer I wondered why the gentle green mountains around my parents’ home weighed on me so darkly. In the room my dad cleared out for me, leaving me two empty drawers, I woke in a panic, trying to figure out […]
On (Still Not) Coming Out I try to anticipate the woundfor the second time. I ask the nurse ifI launch across handlebars, flay a tooth,will spring stems break from cement?he says every stoplight’sblood-thick tongue bites before itforgives. dogs pant in front yardsfacing the sky so I’ll heal without marks:I can pick the thread color for […]
A Quiet Passing [I] at night he tells me about the people he’s killed, about the boyby the river, the woman in her mud & thatch hut, the manhiding in the sharkskin grasslands after dinner we kiss & cuddle, we no longer make love,it is too much, too much to hold & to cradlewithin my […]
No Backsies the extra-large mini-fridge starts up a shimmywhile I’m mid-sentence with my father on the phoneI roll my shoulders against my freshman year cinder block dorm wallsand the ceiling splits—in pokes the head of the Dolphin That Cannot Lie my roommate’s Grapenuts box leaps from the shaking fridgeand out spill my preschool paintings, plastic […]
Raena Shirali black magic “This is how everyone in India is brought up—listening to ghost stories.” –Sushil Sharma, The Washington Post Ithe village men fear my evil mouth: so-called daayan feeding on cattle,stirring dust to stifle crops. i am single. have no manto stand his two feet on top of my ground & reassure: […]
