for Kay Ryan We sharpen our lapidary eyes toward flaws, and see the easy cz disguise, the phrase too pleased to please. We loupe the soldering for telltale fracturing. We will not be fooled. But let us withdraw the ball-peen hammer from its velvet swaddling, let us address the listing prong, the innocuous ding: we…
From The Other Side of the World By the time I arrived home, my father’s tag sale had taken place, and Seana, who bought the works, had moved in with him. A good deal for them both, she claimed. She got all his leftovers—and he got her. Here’s the ad my father put in the…
Pain cloisters itself deep in the body like a ladybug nestling into a pinecone. She finds a pinecone split in two, its spine revealed. It is as if she has discovered her own corpse. What force could split a pinecone down the center? Improbable bolt of lightning, bright finger of pleasure? Perhaps it has lain there for years The ashes have drifted She is lost in the pine forest of…
On the park bench You turn the page of a travelogue— Henry James is eating the last of a puffy croissant Near the border of Italy and France. A crumb has attached Itself to his beard—oh, the faux pas Of greeting Madame du Coudray, With his top hat coming off, His bow like a bending…
You are alone and walking down to Ryan’s house and staring hard at bags of rubbish thrown from cars on the old Dungannon road. Overnight a revival tent has moored in the field as a rule reserved for Fossett’s Circus, or the cars of spectators for the Cookstown 100, who picnic on the verge and…
Lyle was diabetic and the doctors had already lopped off two of his toes. He moved sometimes unsteadily, but he was a strong man with big hands and most people paid attention to his wide chest and knotty arms. He owned a big smile and rubbed his hands together when he was happy and this…
They were in love. This is not a fairytale. She did not offer him a curl as a keepsake. Even then she knew, she had nothing worth keeping. They partook of each other It was not communion. It was not an offering to the gods. Like starving children, they feasted again and again on nothing….
The party girl was down, The pink chowder of puke Splashed in front, Dizziness like a carnival ride, All because of the slushy drinks Slurped on one of those docked boats On the Thames. Been there, Done that, I thought. I stepped Over her, just a lassie In jeans, her golden hair Lifting slightly, And…
On a Friday, during his inspection of the sludge containment tank at the East Winder Municipal Wastewater Treatment Plant, Calvin’s foot slipped off the catwalk—it was raining, the metal was wet—and his left work boot and left leg became submerged up to the knee in treated sewage. “Whoops,” said the plant manager beside him. The…
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