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Ontology & Guinness

     Darling, my daddy’s razor strap is in my hands, & there’s a soapy cloud on my face. I’m a man of my word. Didn’t I say, If Obama’s elected, I’ll shave off this damn beard that goes back to ’68, to Chicago? I know, I also said I’d kiss the devil, but first let…

Wonder Bread

Cootie Munster’s sister is scared of spiders, Jack says, and then Charlie says we should put some down her pants.“We could get those big ones,” he says, “like that came out of the jungle in the movie yesterday.” Kansas City is hot in July and we are sitting in our clubhouse—The Roscoe Turner Flying Corps—which…

Eddie, The Immune

I was a fine altar boy, yes. They say I was also angelic, whatever it means this side of hell. My heroes have blood on their hands, & they all look exactly like me. A good suit. A tilt of the hat. A perfect, practiced smile. A white handkerchief in my breast pocket. Shoes polished…

States

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania is the softest state in the Union. Early in its history, when it was still a colony, Pennsylvania passed an ordinance outlawing sharp corners for the good of the citizenry. As a result, the artisans of Pennsylvania pioneered a style of furniture making that came to be known as Rustic Curvature for its…

Anniversary

at your marker (they call it a marker) a footstone hipper than headstones           earlier mapquest led to metro north           google to the most reliable cab service in peekskill I bring wheat      tall dry half-live stalks           bought the day before           (new york has everything)           no one questions the harvest shooting from…

The Leopard

She feels the shape of another animal three trees ahead, & raises her left front paw. Dew trembles on each blade of grass as a snake uncoils among the leaves. She’s a goddess in a world mastered by repetition & unearthly cadence, pacing off light hidden in darkness. She eases down her right paw, slow…

The Red Balloon

No one knows where it came from. Some say a long black car pulled up to the gas station and from it stepped a black-haired, black-eyed man in a black suit, who coughed once into his fist and then gripped the pump and muddied it with his phlegm. Others say that late one night—for a…