Byron’s Band
In eighth grade, I joined the miniature orchestra at my private Christian school: Jake played violin, John the baritone horn, James, Eric, and Wendy were our clarinet section, while Byron, Warren, and I played alto saxophones. Our band teacher, Mr. Gravestone, waved a thin white baton and wore a thick brown moustache. Smirking at us, Gravestone stroked his moustache like ... Read More
Pilgrimages
You can find a lot of reasons to keep living in a crackly French language cult-film, you know which one. Thereās a man and a woman walking to the Main Street Pharmacy, in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, a short distance from their home near the university. It is said that Isabel, Karlās wife, has a law degree or is a rocket scientist ... Read More
Mermaids Wanted
The rage in the manās voice: This is the kind of bullshit vacation Iādāve gone on if Iād stayed in Saluda and had kids with Erin. He stood next to his sports car yelling at a girl leaning against the car with her head down. A gold rope chain at his neck shone dully in the sun. The girl murmured, ... Read More
Postcard from Colorado
When we observe calmly, BashÅ said, we discover all things have their fulfillment. Overturned canoes along Lake Dillonās western shore rendered into general shapes, valley fields made tabula-rasa white. He sat alone in the cabin watching cloud shadows range mountains. Solitude and morning laziness, pine branches sagging beneath late-season snow ... Read More
Rituals with Elephants (a sort of ghazal)
I barely remember my motherās mother, my memories are not like an elephant I remember her glass cabinet, to a
Voice Over Internet
In addition to āgood morningā and āgood nightā text messages, they used to send each other blank emails. What started
The Fox Always Returns
Lulu wept hot tears into the wheel of her white Datsun. It was almost midnight, the eve of her thirtieth
Death by Butter
For months, sheād been saying āThat butterās gonna kill someoneā each time the heavy paper box thudded on the floor
Olive Expects Organ Music, but There is None
Olive knew the deceased only slightly. He volunteered for years as a handyman at the local homeless shelter. Olive works
Ferry Dream
Iām sure this happened: we were on a ferry, walking the deck among parked cars as we crossed a wide
Second Page of Apartment Lease – Tenancy
Walt Whitman was a great master of irony, loving and caustic, but his tongue-in-cheek description of a landlord āperfect and
She Tried To Be Good
My bookmark lauds pulp fiction, some dark froth called The Amazing Story of Carrie-Daughter of Sin. Carrieās image appears front
The Amateur Taxidermist
frankly, I was never very wild as a musician. jack knew the music. I just liked it. would call around
Sleeping to the Letter M
1.
You hum in the routine of lying down. Your mind rumbles in the murmur of bass voices. You areBackseat Driverās Test
That night the car became a weapon hardened with front sight, slide stop and disassembly lever. Polymers. Carbon fiber. Steel
In the House of Fado
āSometimes I think that when I finally slough off these stagnant clothes, I may not stand as naked as I
Early Music
In which Iām the girl that the young man can only tell the truth to while sheās sleeping, the one
Faraway Houses
Over the distance, the faraway houses looked exactly like different species of mushrooms, bathing in the scant moonlight before the
Things I Lost in the Windstorm
The rack of cocktail dresses with their strappy sequins and newly-matted ostrich feather trim. The books, a sodden pile of
Divertimento
The memory my grandfather shared was meant to be lighthearted. When he was ten, he said, heād sit in the
Loci Classici
Every Friday buries a Thursday. Suffer into truth. When the fruit is ripe, a touch will make it fall. Everything
Flip Flops
A restraining order, which came in the mail, said, āIf you come within ten inches of my woman, I will
The Changes That Have Come Upon Us
And Sor Juana Ines De La Cruz Assuming the luxury of mentioning certain names Placed into verse by way of