Visiting rural Tennessee, I lie awake in a small motel at the edge of a small town, the night throbbing with sounds so robust it seems impossible they could…

  In 2005 I was walking in Louisville, and a guy shouts out, “The TV’s watching you!” People are continually giving me things that I don’t know what to do…

  Suddenly everyone’s friendly. We’re working in the front yard, Boyd and I, and our neighbor who’s never spoken to us calls out, “good job!” And now we’re talking. She’s…

  Mother’s tears are sick to death. Father’s   eyes too small to see. Sister’s eyes are somewhere   else and brothers’ eyes believe it. House’s lamps   are out.…

  I sing the girls little songs while every plant in the house dies.   In group, they say into a microphone: “Today we have learned coping skills.” I cannot…

  Cancer is a cancer is a cancer invading Publix check-out lines. Cashiers ask you to make a donation for it. There are 84 movies on IMDb that have patients…

  pulls down People Magazine asking her friend why J-Lo was wearing “that Cuban flag” during the Super Bowl. I want to tear titles off the front page—Inappropriate & R-Rated…

  She says: Dangerous for there not to be grass, dangerous for there to be. Every little fairy alive and wiring up. A garbage pull tab is as important as…

  The day begins as it always does: with birth control & black coffee. & you have curtains now, so you pull them apart like pages or legs or what…

  it is helpful to imagine you’re in the woods at night / you have to make it / through that’s all / feel your way from tree to tree…

  I’m asked to keep a secret and I do until I don’t. Until he trusts   me to ration out his pills and when I forget fever sweats hold…