When we were finished, we stepped back and leaned against the black- dusted SUV in the driveway. Grains of wet dirt slicked our arms up to our elbows, sweat freckled our reddening skin, and the nebula imprint of the sidewalk dotted the skin of my knees. I asked her what she thought as we stood … Continue reading This Way
Among the pile of tires where we would hunt for snakes you showed me your new bruises. When I told you one of them looked like a buffalo on a bike, you flipped me off and climbed up the bank. It was Thanksgiving, and we were spending it like used dogs beneath the bridge that … Continue reading Cry Baby Bridge
All your life you waited for some tiny bird – a wren, a cardinal - somewhere in the world whose birth would change your fortune. But now that chirping creature of joy is dead, buried in the earth with its lovesongs & there’s nothing left nothing for you to wish for nothing nothing but a … Continue reading Done and Undone
It was the summer you burnt two acres of a corn field and almost the rest of town. You, the neighbor kid, and the pastor’s son shot off all the good fireworks we bought on the way back from the beach. You thought 2:30 pm in late July would be the best time to watch … Continue reading Daytime Fireworks
They said I need to change the launch angle and split open the soil between the mound and the plate. That that could be a first step to eliminating lockjaw and cleaning up the wax out in the briar patch. Forget the moral, they announced, There are no contrails left for that And besides, the … Continue reading Barrels
Sparkling new blue sneakers, the smell of typewriter ribbon, rainbow sherbet sunset, cold bicycle metal. Dawn & dew & paperboy ink stains. Cafeteria vending machine, cotton socks, green coach shorts, mop buckets, a radio, the Bee Gees then Frank Sinatra, lunch breaks & the bar after work. Broken dishwasher, a little orange light blinking E:020. … Continue reading While Falling From The Barn Roof
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