Poetry

That afternoon, Bovary went to the apothecary’s closet, fumbling for arsenic to draw out her black bile, make her mouth a hole. She waited hours for the worst of it, the shearing of her dark lovely hair— though for many years my mother’s hair was not lovely but thin as sagebrush an autumn fire had…

I like the idea of a spratchet, which today I learned is the plastic divider used in checkout lines that says this is almost mine and this is almost yours. I like how it helps two strangers not skinny dip in the reservoirs of each other’s bank accounts. And there’s nothing rude about a spratchet—…

In the tradition of aunts and nieces we were traveling on the continent, and, as in the tradition, she had no child; we slept in one room, in one bed.   What of men? I would sit in the hotel window in Paris, looking at the people on the street below— they held no interest….

By then, simple questions had grown blades: you’re not even going to shave came to mean, I don’t like the way you look, or that’s how I came to hear it. On certain days she’d say, do you love me today? and I would say, even more than yesterday, and she’d say, that’s impossible!  …

I liked the joyful sound of the piano coming from the open door where a few departing partygoers giggled, arms linked. I went in. But despite the pianist’s spirit and those lively partygoers, this party was on its last legs. A brown-haired woman with a brass hoop around her neck and an empty martini glass…

after Peter Harris   A Japanese shrine is lit by ten thousand candles. One by one, jungle crows carry the candles away to the fields. The flight does not extinguish the flame—the wick remains hot. Then, the crows bury their new light under dry leaves, saving the tallow in the wax for another day. They’ll…

is a bone you dig out of your body with another bone   because how else can I describe the kind of time it takes forgiveness to thicken inside a body   which is divided into various half-heartedly warring nations   a dry forest waiting for the sky to blush   a parking garage ringed…

“They know locks are important,” the nurse says when she sees me watching a man, younger than my father, twist the switch of a deadbolt nailed to the wall in the dayroom—one of many locks nailed to the wall. Puzzles that can never be solved. Total fake-outs. A tumbler lock, a sliding door latch, an…

I’m surprised how long it takes her heart to stop. Strong old girl. Dr. Murrell keeps the stethoscope pressed to her ribs. I lean down in front of her unblinking eyes.   “You’re a good dog, Abby,” I assure her. Deb, Denny, and Dr. Murrell agree. “You are a good dog, Abby.” A beat or…