The Good Nights
When my father left us, my mother became a panther, her eyes slow from medication, hunting an answer the rooms couldn’t give her. She was angry, but didn’t…
Alternative Facts
for Tamir Rice the officer stops parks his car at the frost chipped curb the officer can see the boy and spends a few more moments in…
Alabama Climacteric
I caught the smell of sick on myself, sweet as talcum or skin. My god was exhausted. My god was a glitter. My mama called sweat a sheen.…
Before I Believed in the Body as Word
I went to love because I wanted to believe in the self as a place that deserved its own destruction. I dwelled on the inside of my …
Another Way of Explaining It
A fine way of looking at things— me observing you kissing me. How decent of me to pretend I am shocked by you. You’re the inverted foot…
Valentine’s Day
Why is it so stubbornly in winter? Drifts everywhere, salt shortage. For the men hawking roses in morning rush, nowhere to stand but the street — they’re gonna get…
Watching the Hale-Bopp Comet Over Howard Johnson Motel in Rolla, Missouri
They do not rest or come to Earth, neither Common Swifts nor the crescent moon in flight, but the Hale-Bopp swings near every few thousand years, and we…
Day Is Done
By the time the hearse pulled up to where the dead corporal was to be buried, Private Crane felt as if the rubber soles of his jump boots had…
Kicking the Stone
The bookstore café was lit by lamps on tables, the big windows at the front beaded with condensation that acted like a blind, dimming the afternoon light. Sylvia had…