That’s how it starts, with the trash. Someone is swapping the trash, silently and insidiously, all over town. On the Promenade des Aubes, the rich lift the lids of their silvery pails and find used Pampers stuffed into empty boxes of Hamburger Helper; well-bred aunts hold up low-watt bulbs and shake them gingerly, as if…
it’s the girl in deep water who will not drown (drum) come down (drum) come down (drum) zora’s instrument hidden in the belly (drum) carried across the atlantic (drum) it’s a mystery to master (drum) it don’t stop (drum) don’t stop (drum) gotta story to tell (drum) won’t stop (drum)…
There was no house yet, just a wellhead where the house would be, under an overturned box to keep the sand out. Clay was building the house, and it would be one to live in for a long time, so they were trying to get everything right. From the passenger seat, Susan watched him wedge…
Teenagers for sure, one black, one white, so when did they have that terrified, high-pigtailed child? in yellow and pink, screaming Mommy, Mommy, at Sherman and Walden as I bike through. The boy stands in the street, you’d say irresolute, but his (good-looking) face is calm. As if I were the child I see the…
San Antonio, Florida They don’t mow on Sundays in San Antonio. They keep the seventh day for Paz and Neruda, for Simic angels whose wings are made of smoke. And they walk their dogs softly in the morning, so they will not miss the smallest utterance of Whitman or of John Clare, who pace the…
1. I am my father’s sidekick, Mutt to his Jeff, Costello to Abbott, Tonto to the Lone Ranger. I am his pal, his fall guy. I follow him like a shadow. He calls me “Me Too.” Sure there’s a comic strip character named Me Too, but I am too young to know that. I fall…
The week Junior died, the temperature dropped to fourteen below and stayed there. The seats on my Honda felt like they were made of plywood, and the engine groaned before turning over, a low sound like some Japanese movie monster waking up after a thousand-year sleep. I had long underwear on under my suit, but…
Long ago two sisters lived in a small brick house beside a superhighway. The tall chatty one knew the first & last name of every animal in the galaxy. The small quiet one could make her hair grow longer or shorter with no more than a thought. The pecan-colored sister said, “I wish I had…
You believe, if you cast wide enough your net of want and will, something meaningful will respond. Perhaps we are the response— each a cresting echo hesitating, vibrant with the moment before rippling back. But you’re steadfast as Odysseus strapped to the mast, as you were in ’81 when Reagan ordered you back to work….
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