Here is my shapeless dignity—the dark loves anything with a shadow.Sweeping. A pile of fallen leaves.I love the night’s genderless hands. The dark loves anything with a shadow.I’ve never known where the water is sourced.I love the night’s genderless hands. It canbe a shock to drink from an underground spring. I’ve never known where the…
Sometimes I’m a little birdflying under the sassafrastree—strange planthas three kinds of Leaves—Simple, Mitten, and three-fingeredGlove—last year they chopped you down Sassafras I thought you Dead / stump ground downto nothing / now I lay that yellow birdunderneath—found she needed sassafrasto cure her aching head, fingeredand tearful lying on a floor of leavesas if she…
We put allour eggs in onebasket case—a guywho is one egg short ofan omelet. Everyone aroundhim walks on eggshells and no onedares say he has egg on his face. You’vegot to break a few eggheads to make an omelet,he blurts. His cabinet eggs him on, remindinghim of talking points—life starts as soon as spermhits an egg….
The albino boxer blitzed through the backwoods—more chaos machine than dog—barreling toward me once more through brittle blackberry briars and frozen birdbaths,and, again, I blasted my air horn with its hideous boom that made possums faint and pole barns shudder,but not once had that dog ever hesitated, the threat of her still plaguing my mind…
What happened?Eight-year-old (or nine-year-old) HenriettaKing whose job it was to empty chamberpots. Always the job of the lowest caste—Dalits, burakumins, or here as (was Henrietta)—slaves.Eight-year-old (or nine-year-old) Henriettadoes it here or rather there.Yes, here it is done by little HenriettaKing, a slave. Hungry half-starved worked hard.The Missus put out a piece of candy to seeif…
Called widow makers because their branches fallduring droughts. They sever their own branches to conserve water, to save the whole tree. As if cuttingoff a hand to save a whole body. How does the tree decide what to drop? This one dropped two limbs,one onto a car. It only took the men a day to remove the…
No matter where I went todayI was not Michael.I was not even the shadowof my middle name.No name took my place,no name was asked.When I sat on a benchthinking of you, tryingto see your face,I was not Michael—I knew because the rainchose to fall nearbut not upon me,and it wasn’t to makean exception.People were walking…
Friday—first day of fall Two friends, two beers each. One has just held the hand of theother’s dying mama, regaling her with tales of her son’smisadventures. He’s moving to Houston the next day, far intothe flooding swamp. Mama is quiet, peaceful, pain-free. Go, shesays, go have a good time. After the two beers the friends…
My roommate was having an argumentwith his girlfriend: It’s the wrong key. No it’s not. Well it isn’t working. Once you and I had disagreements like that,I ended it. But there was a pointwhen I had a codeto your front door. People had the wrong idea about us.No socks on the stairswas one of your…
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