You’d think it was a teenager in a rented tuxgoing to the prom in a borrowed car butit’s a cedar waxwing in his cupsdrunk on juniper berries.I get it.I was allowed one dance at the senior promas my mother worriedI might have sex right after—disgracing the Lord and the familyin that order.The Lord in those…
Behind the saints & other tchotchkes, behind the urnstill waiting to receive me— I’ve slipped the summer I scoured Europewith my Death. When I was Death’s best mount, the maremade biddable. Soft-mouthed. Eager to be ridden. In widow’s crepe, how ferociously I courted him,how gladly I amused himin a gown too girlish, the old scums…
The first time the girls ask what the word means, colonized, a lark falls dead at our feet, undoubtedly, on a small lawn of white petals from the climbing rose. Platitudes, I mean plenitudes, the greenery’s plenitude. I will wait until tonight and when the bristling blossoms close, I will tell the girls something or everything. I…
After I forgot the salsa. After my panic attackand my tumble downstairs to screaminto the winter coats. After your kindnesswasn’t enough, or it was, but I needed to getsomething right. I drove back to Victorico’sin the cold rain. And the cashier’s eyeswere soft. And I waited for the quesadillaI didn’t want. And six extra containers…
Clouds race each other across the heavens, as dazzlingas they are ephemeral. Frayed ravens inquire,Why can’t you accept his death or anyone else’s? Botanists sayplants register memories of winter, which they useto decide if it’s safe, meaning warm enough, to bloom.Scores of sexually deceptive orchids were discoveredon two new islands this June. Snakes make friends.Mice reflect…
“Why is my mama sleeping?” he asksstruggling to unbuckle, hardlyhearing the noiseof the machine gun bursts His childish torso slidesunder her breasts and belly—it hurts them both, yetlax as seaweed they lie for ages under the watersmoving along with the tideuntil a man’s voiceshouts: “Come out! Out!” “Seriously?” is allshe can manage, as if lodged…
When I walked past your house last nightyou’d been dead a week. A crate was tippedagainst the porch, the lights were off,the awning pitched a little further north.It reminded me of the time a friendasked me to come over while her catwas put to sleep. Rafferty—his silky legsagainst me as he passed. Like a dark…
On the fourth floor, doves.Some circled above usinside the caged patio.We sipped warm tea in clear glasses.Even after the sugar cubes dissolved,I kept stirring.You called the museum misleading:nothing here is actually from the Jurassic period.Not the decaying, antique dice;not the book on the Tower of Babel;not the dogs of the Soviet space program.“What kind of place…
In the village, we kids picked flowersfor the mass grave colorful fragrant weedsblossoming reeds and grasses All the schoolchildrenwere locked in the school that day Huddling around cow dung cakeswe made small fires didn’t entrust to adultsour wild ghost stories Nothing remained of the schoolbut a mossy outline I tried to learn their namesthere were…
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