The speaker is the young black man Susan Smith claimed kidnapped her children. Though it’s common belief That Susan Smith willed me alive At the moment Her babies sank into the lake When called, I come. My job is to get things done. I am piecemeal. I make my living by taking…
1. The Eskimo children balance their blackboards on their knees and write with soft fat chalk. A storm skitters across the frozen sea. Smidgeons of ice have swirled into pinwheels. 2. The painter Magritte is dabbing black paint on his canvas. Beneath the clock he writes “wind,” beneath the door “horse.” 3. The Eskimo children…
Narcissist #1 I’m so amazing I could lick myself. Narcissist #2 Did you see how well I licked myself? Narcissist #3 I was so upset. They barely noticed the way I licked myself.
My favorite God a horse the color of my name. And when I ride him, a heat between my legs, like tongue on ice, friction of moon against darkness. Over and over, the hooves, the rain, finding the ground. Hearts, black boots flung there in the mud behind us. And all around us, the leaves…
1. The Fingers They are small enough to find and care for a tiny stone. To lift it with wobbly concentration from the ground, from the family of stones, up past the pursed mouth— for this we are thankful—to a place level with her eyes to take a close look, a look…
You were going to ask me why I am here, and I’m going to tell you. But I want you to look at the scar on my arm, this one right here in the shape of a mouth, though not a human one. I like to talk about my scars, I like to talk about…
“As it leaves dawn behind and advances into day, light prostitutes itself and is redeemed—ethics of twilight— at the moment it vanishes.” —E. M. Cioran Ethics of secrets and vanishings, of sunny downfalls and cloudy coverups. The reign of commonsense has ended and strangeness floats through the air. Deceptive moonlight, dusky erasures—…
Every dusk there gather in the trees birds whose bodies lean heavy as magnolias on the bent and swaying branches. Every dusk, in trees, birds gather, looking heavy as magnolias or the shadows of magnolias, since in color birds are darker; and since they scatter, turning to reassemble on their branches, burning slowly in their…
She came to me with a mind like fire and a name written in smoky letters on the wind. She came to me with the grief of a fallen angel, with white arms that should have been wings and skinny legs sadly rooted to the ground. She came to me barefoot in a sleeveless dress,…
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