poetry

  She thinks it’s funny the boys down the road call her a crow when it’s a term better suited to her husband with his horde of shiny things: his money, his trophies, his bullets. The only shiny things she … Read More

  In each of us there is a girl always wanting more and in her wanting becomes someone no one wants to help. Not mice in the board room where she only says sorry when she’s done something wrong and … Read More

  She tongues French toast to her left cheek. Mom, she says, there’s a bug on the floor by the fridge. There it is, I say, a stink bug. Chew and swallow, please, before you talk. She’s five years old, … Read More

  It can’t just be a killer who cuts out hearts. It’s got to be a killer with a blender selling red popsicles in Central Park. It can’t just be a cannibal. It’s got to be a cannibal trapped in … Read More

  When the classroom’s somber loudspeaker voice said “our president,” was I the only one . . . surely I wasn’t the only one thinking our student body president had been shot. Our Jim. A super-cool eighth-grade kid. So popular … Read More

  I. You and your mother sit on the futon and watch Twelve Angry Men*. She tells you she has been looking forward to this. Lately, you have taken to dipping your apples in boiling water to get the wax … Read More

  burns a hole in your head sprouts wings and flies won’t bark up the right unless you shell out or marry it hand over fist penny wise or not occasionally pound dumb after a certain yearly sum it can’t … Read More

  I After working out, I stop by the café across the street that stays open late and I sit at the bar in a favorite spot. I am thirsty and the young café worker fills and refills my generic … Read More

  I spend all day on Google Maps picking out houses with porches and old trees in the front yard. On some online road in California I play how old is that one by myself, I guess it’s 55 or … Read More

  is left unsaid though his features speak it and the color of his voice, his choices. He carries his father unsteadily, as once his father hoisted him high onto the crags of his shoulders or lay on the floor … Read More

  Spring is not everything, but it seems to be the answer. God is here, stretching her green knuckles to set the heart aflame. That other spring, when I turned eight, my mother threw away my dolls. Off the balcony, … Read More

  As a kid I’d lean against the right wall of my room and with a pencil draw a horizontal line that revealed my height alongside the passage of time: age climbing up the wall. Today if I pass by … Read More