It is after dark, and I’m waiting for Martin to return. He’s out jogging, his nightly ritual, though he’s been gone longer than usual. I’m seated cross-legged on the couch checking email on my laptop and, behind me, I hear the rain against the glass. I glance up to my left and see the top […]

These mountains are killing me—killing all of us—though I know it’s in self-defense. Getting away from here is all I can think about as I step off the bathroom scale, skim my jeans over my pelvic bones, take up the slack inch of denim with a safety pin. Another pound has slid off me this […]

Prose is a trap, my professor looks up from her computer when she says this.  She has a tendency to hit realizations so simply— it doesn’t feel like a realization.  Prose is inherently patriarchal, and I will never be able to escape it as long as I continue to rely on this demand, on these […]

Books are gentle companions. Generally. I was only just about murdered by books on one occasion. That was fifteen years ago… * I wasn’t sure what to do with my life. I had no prospects. I had an arts degree. I started reading a fair bit. More than usual. I read for ten to twelve […]

We sink into the cantaloupe snow, mountains  heavy on our bellies, our eyes ice-blind. This is love—  This is how we coat our throats, become  like mothers. The air is made of wool. We might be  a shoebox diorama: two figures, pools of glue,  country blues. We could have a home  in muskmelon, man and […]

i don’t care if you leave me bruised, purpled skin under blue eyes. blood dripping down your lip, marks made with nails (i don’t remember  what it’s like to feel  safe here). i can feel you breathe  above me, can feel the choke before you grab my neck (we will never be  a love poem, […]

The half-light before sunrise flattens the field, doesn’t leave shadows yet, draws the road with graphite stillness, the flat mesquites that spike against the toneless sky, fences as monochromatic as the memory of pain. Watching for mule deer is the main thing, because they are as gray as the hill at times like these, will […]

Every day I think you have to talk to her. But mornings go on blithely, sinus rhythm louder than my will. My tongue takes no part – I give her a book, my heart loves books. I find it hidden under the gall bladder. I show her Metasequoia, teach the term invagination – she reaches […]

and this I’ve never told anyone— the winter after we bought the house I took you down to the creek  which seemed safe enough when I was young Not quite three,  I guess you didn’t know the terror of stop (you rarely learn things that aren’t  shouted) and I didn’t have the breath for it […]

Late August. The last dregs of summer pour out in murky and tepid sunlight. It lingers briefly over immiscible surfaces, glistening. Another year ruined. You are missed by all the places you bruised with your love and your leave-taking. Numbed, plumb full of treachery I am pulled down and dawn to dusk must drag the […]

We found them after the tree trimmers had loaded up their machines and gone— two baby sparrows in the grass, tumbled  like ripe fruit. We placed a shoebox on a heating  pad, lined it with soft cloth, and watched them  squeak and squirm, all purplish crepe skin,  bulging eyes shut. Our mother promised us  she’d […]

True that tenderness never stopped  a bomb, got a man elected  president, or netted billions  in market shares. But when my father stands in the wedge between car and car door, clutching the frame and trembling, and my brother positions the wheelchair behind him, grasps him under the arms, guides him into the nylon seat […]

two chickadees burn a path through air from the feeder suspended on its frozen pole, cloaked in shade, to bare twigs of dogwood, doused with sun.  back and forth. taking turns. or is there just one bird, tethered to hunger?  plunging each time into darkness then winging back to light where it cracks and chews […]

We skip through woods, Scraped knees down a dirt path, Play wedding with twisted twigs For rings and altars of pine bark Sticky with sap. We play bride in little girl bodies Between regatta and swimming, The procession of the day laid out In neat little hours, boxes checked, Holding ghost hands. We climb log […]

CAST OF CHARACTERS PROFESSOR: A homeless, mid-40’s African-American man, who obviously grew up in a decent neighborhood and had a very good high school education.  A very philosophical type yet physically domineering.  He goes from a contemplative reverie to friendly communication with CRISPUS during the play. CRISPUS: Another homeless, African-American man, mid 30’s who, unlike […]

We use words to build images. We put the words together in a particular order, and if we’re lucky, something happens other than the relaying of information. The reader takes those words and assembles and reassembles them in their mind. It’s the inseparable sensory experience we’re after (we being the writer and the reader). In […]