Postmarked from the Middle of Nowhere When someone says It’s the middle of nowhere, they don’t mean New York or Boston or LA, they mean where you and I are from—Tennessee and West Virginia, Kentucky and Mississippi and Alabama. Those rural places where our lives are unfolding. Where my grandmother Maria Garcia Peña is laughing…
On the first day God began splitting things, and time began. The angels gathered in little groups —even though it was forbidden— and said things like: remember when death and life were the same? Remember the language of trees? Remember love before hate became its own thing? God said remembering was just for Sundays but…
I never met a February I liked, shorter or short, though the birds are no longer wary, and chives rush out green in an herb garden cemetery. One thing the sickle branch says is that mulberries are months away, despite how hungry sidewalks have gotten for smushed sweets after another season of salt and the…
If we were to try to keep this even, or at least find the midpoint in this argument before anyone gets mean we’d be golden. Let’s say when you said maybe we’re not meant to be with just one person I had responded with – what do you mean by being with someone – what…
Much of the earth has been eradicated before. I’m not going to stay awake and think about that. Sleep is important. Sleep is essential. Tomorrow I’ll be groggy and off-balance and there’s the possibility of falling and breaking a bone. I must not stay awake and think of the chained, the bombed-out, the starving. …
When I look down at my belly, the line there looks back. Straight as a snake measuring its prey. Twice I’ve watched my midline muster stripe and thicken. Become open parenthesis, primed to hold the past tense on display. What kind of magic blooms a scar before the skin ruptures? I continue to find the…
I try not to use a pen that’s too special, writing instead with whatever’s at hand, in this case a pen from George and Ken’s Collision, where I had my hood repaired. After paying the deductible, I wasn’t leaving there without a pen, so I slipped this one into my pocket as…
How did the people realize the steeple needed repair? They prayed below for what stood above. They hired a steeplejack to go and see. Before descending he took a look at the towers of Boston to the north and skyward at contrails of flights. He paused to consider the damage. They prayed against the worst…
You’re kept in capsules on the bathroom counter, a synthetic strain of vitamin A, sealed for potency. Your purpose is to shield the face from signs of aging. Over-the-counter lacks the power existing in medical grade— though too much, over time, can blur the vision, incite a kind of skin-peeling condition or frail the bones….
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