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  • Whish

    Just for once, I want to witnessthe going away. I want to catch the moment,cup it in my hands, and see it blink and glow.But in this dream, the Valley Line shrieksfrom Grand Central hours before I arrive. OrI reach Port Canaveral after the Boatswain’sfinal call. I’m alone on the pier,waving goodbye, waving come back,waving…

  • Turning the Brightness Up to Bleach

    What we have made is flyover country.                    Gulch of drip-coffee pleasance, my beige blanket’s deafening                                         softness keeping the edges blurred.                            No glint. Viewed from above the fields stitch together. Belief in the human quilt.Belief in turning away from the needle’s sharp point, belief that the gauntlet valleyed by rage and time is a safe space worth…

  • Private Practice

    Can I leave now?is all a teenage client monotones again and again in our first session together. I can only helpif you talk to me is what I’m supposed to say to him.Last night I played solitaire and didn’t cheat, stacked my red cards,stacked my black, as my husband read about the president. We went…

  • Foretaste of Disaster

    Young, therefore vain & wingless, he letshis father tie a blue thread around his chest.It is before the famous tragedy, the fall. Beforethe imminent sea. The coast still composedin subdued hues & regimented patterns.The abstraction of waves has yet to be mutilatedby a scream. Human position yet to be tested.He, at his prime, Anthony Van…

  • Aubade for a Year [Without]

    The cattle dog sniffs around for something to chew& I get it, I do, the small snuffbox, the paper matchessulfuring inside my belly, reaching out for whateverwet thing will not burn nevertheless must burn.One morning, buds on the branches as bloodlings &another morning green, verdant fucking green swooshingin the wind, as if never a cliff…

  • The Autumn of Her Discontent

    The Japanese maple has lefther red-handed prints all over town—guilty of fall and of falling. Even Eve in her fig leaveswas not arrayed as one of these—as fallen woman, lady in red with each painted finger as pointedas a scarlet letter A. Everyone’salways looking for the luminous, the luminol, the killing and the kindling,the exit…

  • twelve minutes a slave

    we held a slave auction in class today—probably not a state-sanctioned componentof AP U.S. History. but Mr. S made a blockout of the front-row desks, cordoned it offwith backward-facing chairs. he shame-forcedTony Miller above us and introduced himas “item #5.” he’d prepared a catalog:a one-sided sepia sheet with Tony’s descriptionand a starting price. before the…