Still Life with Bear and Choke Cherry
In late summer. The hunger of bears. Its logic. Its shifting mouth. Its swift stripping. And prodigious energy. She looks up as if to say, I will not…
I Gave Him the Moon
—with thanks to Geoff Notkin —a piece of it, lunar rock, gingerly, as directed. I gave him the moon, or as we call it, mah, the H heard…
Parenthesis Enclosing Empty Space
You were my Persephone until you abducted yourself. From me. Gone ( ) Where? Why? How? Who are you? My body echoes with your absence, with once-and-lost inflections.…
Elegy as Long as a Summer
Summer burned easily. And everyone had something to say. The rock said, be finished with sweetness. The tree said, repeat like a lie. The ground said, a mouse is…
Tyrant Birds
1. The man who wasn’t there to buy furniture appeared my first week on the job. This was odd, because the store I worked at sold furniture, and because…
To Kill a Child
The inferno blew and blew. It rose above the trees and spread outward like villainous arms across the porches of the neighbors’ houses. The cries of an engulfed dog…
Interstate
We play games in the backseat, the children and me. Is it bigger than a breadbox? Smaller than a house? Everyone’s a good sport before lunchtime but, by afternoon,…
Listening to Birds
Because I am not Dave’s wife, I hold my ear to his daughter’s chest every day, when the other children are quiet, sleeping. I think of her as his…