Before they put Cousin Gladys inside the ground in a cornrow of fair-skinned Creole men, I sat in her funeral mass imagining two shadows dancing in the swish of a swift moving blade that slit her dreams in halfand sent her father strollingacross the cane field like a land-bending river, turning a page she could…
The kind Italian driver of the bus to Romeinvited her to his house—she was obviouslyhungry—and gave her sandwichesand raped her. All those years ago—she smileswhile telling it—contemptuous,somehowof her younger self, who drags behind her like a can.Grammar is greatbut who will write the sentence that includesthe story of the damage to her soul and how…
Along a familiar hiking trail I recognizeagave, sage, the summer-blooming yucca,and sticky monkey flower. *As if they might be learning a new dance,elders plant their feet on steady ground,gathering wind in their arms to move cloud hands. *Returning home tonight I avoid crushinga snail that casts a scant shadowon the wide sidewalk in clear light of a…
for Linda Gregg Safe in the light along the bankBeing in believingNo name Only being On the bank radiant and blank Safe watching and seeing On the brink Of the light Blank No blame in being Waiting then breathing in being SeeingSinging Let my voice Let my voice ceaseBeing On the banks along that brink After the blaze of knowingThat…
After the death of his wife, Loring began giving away things for free. His sister-in-law worried it was some kind of “suicide thing,” as his brother Bill put it, which only showed how little they knew him. Loring wasn’t suicidal. If anything, in the four months since Gloria died, there was a new kind of…
The room cannot feel its arteries stuffed with animal fatfrom the insulation. Cannot hope to alter its mouth andeating is not a thing that it can do well. The room hasn’ttaken a bath since 1987, but there was a slight wash in1992 bestowing the room its perforated body. The roomcannot control the content of its…
Alan Zimmer had been staying at the Kirschbergs’ for a week when he saw their daughter in the elevator at Brigham and Women’s. She was in a wheelchair. Alan, behind her, recognized the yellow kinks of her hair, and the dark roots that cleaved to her part. He stepped forward. “Jenna! What are you doing…
They’d traveled one by oneon their knees beneath the earthto be gathered at the station to be given robes and haloes and official papers. And a bus ticket each to the roadside motelin Ohio that heldthe reservations in their names, where those who’d been slain before them were waiting. Can these be the right martyrs?…
We’re in the middle of it, in the middleof the backyard barbecuing steakand chicken. Telling stories with our wives and girlfriends away,red and blue psychedelics, Coors Lightand breasts falling into our mouths again like basalt cliffs into the sea.Jeremy says, I did CPR on a gorilla once.A girl gorilla, a big one. I kept thinking,…
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