After the stroke you could not lift your left hand to meet your right in prayer, so a daughter pressed her young flesh full palm against your wrinkled one so your hands could speak for your lips were cracked in a mouthy desert of dried saliva. This daughter, by your sidetried to abide the ordersto … Continue reading Tic Tac
OLD SAMSON COULDN'T FEEL his hands because of the coldness of the gun. Or maybe it was the snow that gathered on his jacket, looking like the ash in the dead fire pit back at camp. But the numbness steadied his aim. He was chilled beyond shivering. No longer did his body fight off the … Continue reading The Morph Deer
Don’t you want to believe it — with just the pluck of an eyebrow or the clip of a rogue cuticle you too could be new again? Beauty is the self’s sneakiest assassin, slipping in through the unlocked door of desire, slashing tomorrow’s throat with its shiny switchblade.I make the hair appointment, get the fillers, … Continue reading She Of Theseus
The year Logic came out with his suicide hotline song,we had to report students singing I just wanna diein the hallways during passing period. As teachers,it’s our job to report outcries like this to the crisiscounselor, even though we know it’s a song.You’re finished if you don’t, says the principal.Your life ended in ninth grade; … Continue reading My Students Say Things That Kill Me
FINN HAD BEEN FOUND on a street corner near Ellie’s office. Thankfully, she didn’t have to pass that spot on her walk to work, and each morning she determinedly avoided looking in that direction. Instead, she’d concentrate on the smells of toasted bagels cutting through the winter air from the bakery, or the thump of … Continue reading Finn’s Corner
Pretty cool for a kid who watched too much Disney channel and threw so many peace signs at Polaroids my Nana had to give me a nickel to stop. Amoebas with attitude sashaying through a sea of autotuned pink, pinky promise pink, gum-poppin’ pink. Now muted tones like bone, ecru, beige. I’m afraid I’m plain … Continue reading The Pink Cheetah Print Coat
ELEANOR JACKSON STUDIED her body in her closet door mirror. She had avoided looking into this mirror for several years and always had it covered up by clothes hanging from a row of hooks above it. But now she removed the clothes and inspected her body in fascination. A waist that had expanded over the … Continue reading Rewind
Stag beetle, antlers raised Corpse mounted in resin. Preservation,nature’s baby, a human oddity, a body on displayon the desk, half paperweight half treasure. Palmed under the guise of sanctification (isn’t it beautiful?) — here is your forensic proof, the crime so, so long ago now a shadow on the waterline, the vessel submerged. Stag beetle, … Continue reading Funeral
I’m trapped between a rug and a hard place. This shiny floor keeps reproducing. I’m clinging like barnacles to the sinking ship. It is always moving, but where is it going? The captain is a bat out of hell. Wizzing through dark caves. Are you always moving? Young folks watch Tik Tok. Then they break … Continue reading Real Humans
STANDING IN LINE for our food stamps, I thought of my new love, a tiny Asian stripper with two young kids working it in a KCDC housing project polluted with bloody gangsters while trying hard to make it out – killing rats and the resident sewer roaches, wanting that degree from the community college, somehow … Continue reading Surviving It All