Considering all the ways you made me squeak: the chatoyancy of a marble paper weight, slice & slip to land beside a weeping candle — I was soft faced & dark handed. Remembering all the ways I could die: a long distant cat thorough through ripe grapes as shiny as pearls — we weren't talking … Continue reading The Garden
I stepped off the bus and the giant green tube of toothpaste followed me. “It’s not because you have yellow teeth,” it said. “Ok then what?” “It’s because you’re a good listener.” I felt played. Who says that if they’re not after something? My teeth felt furry. Like I needed to brush them. I had … Continue reading Toothpaste Hot Chase
The morning is foggy. I can barely see the road ahead of my car. I drive toward the babysitter’s house and turn a punk rock song loud and my kids giggle and we sing together. I’ve been doing better lately. We arrive and we hug and kiss and say goodbye and I leave for work … Continue reading I Miss You, I Love You
I wonder what it’s like to be you, claws and all attentive only to a tidepool beneath this sky of-all-things I envy your pocketless-ness and the other folds you lack for collecting trepidations there is no malignancy of words in shallow water no dashed hopes no fickle dreams it’s just you — solitary — spinning … Continue reading The Hermit
I know my better selves exist because sometimes they strike out blindly and sometimes they say, Look what you made me do. If it's not synchrony then it's simultaneity. If it's not instantaneous then it's a process hence carcinogenic. Who was that masked man? How great-American the novel that spans twenty thousand generations! Willows wallowing … Continue reading Alchemy
As January’s sun, appearing hot through glass, desire is predicated on taking accurate temperature and my mercury is risen. More trees are willows than you might think, my body is catkins, buds, so much has changed since you visited the neighborhood, I’ve built a park I thought you’d like and that you’ve never seen. All … Continue reading Refraction
I. Compare & contrast: ● invulnerability ● already broken II. Choose the Right Answer: 1. All life is a death sentence 2. Death does not have wings III. Please respond below. _________________________________ BLANK SPACES ARE BULLETPROOF suffocated shots — SAM ALEC Sam Alec is a mostly unknown artist currently residing in the San Francisco Bay … Continue reading Mid-Life Pop Quiz
I sip scotch neat. —— play chess; laugh at blunders. —— reset the board; make new mistakes. —— exhale. At the next table, four kids drink shots; explode! —— compare accomplishments; grow loud —— make plans to win. I want to say Lao Tzu says: “Time doesn’t matter. —— demons are friends; there is nothing … Continue reading At the Bar
The blooming of the floodplain is surreal in its brevity. Red- capped mushrooms are stooge to wind-wavering ferns. On June evenings the riverside is a burnished copper blade. By night the river knits pockets beneath town, and each sleeping mind that passes downstream stops to add a secret. — MILES VARANA Miles Varana’s work has … Continue reading Earth’s Answer — Tomah, WI
I hurry back to the house I grew up in. Fish blood on my hands. The lamp on the back porch is still burning. The door is open. The hunting beagles are fed and already asleep. And there’s some cold supper on the table waiting for me. I eat it cold too. I ask my … Continue reading Met Death at the River, He Gave Me a Fish