Good New Teeth
The old man woke up screaming. The nurse, asleep in the next room and dreaming of the seaside, heard the scream as a black harpy screeching toward a flock…
All You Left
Much later, when I was twenty-eight years old, I met up with our childhood friends at a bar in our Connecticut hometown the night before your funeral and they…
Inheritance
dilapidation on the lawn we watch without sorrow; a chair, perhaps is the irretrievable earth appraising, I think, this came from my father’s country where bricks are the…
After He Leaves
Your house is a room that follows the sun, changes constantly like light-sensitive glasses. On the hottest days, the carpet retreats and a low vinyl tide creeps in. You…
At the Same Time
At the funeral, they sprinkled grains of dirt into my palm, but I saw no point in throwing them into a hole that could never be filled. The only…
In the Winter, You Made Me Tea through the Coffeemaker
There were, of course, the doctor appointments you accompanied me to, after repeatedly finding blood in my urine—fearing it was a symptom of something worse lying underneath. That…
Beautiful Boy with Garlands around His Waist
here / i am not his image / & i envy it / i shut my eyes against what is left / the crackling softness of life / like…
Once We Are Severed
1. Like one of those bubble-makers spewing drooling chains from balconies during Mardi Gras parades, I am churning out his cells as we speak. Some of the bubbles…
As If Death Could Be Washed Off of Us
I try to count the things she can’t the vine in the mustard yellow bowl left in the water that couldn’t be drained the tiny grapes I…
Temple Street Night Market
One fortune teller says someone could walk around with a gun, shooting into the air and the bullets would not strike a living soul. Another says she invited a…
Fragments in a Burger Joint
It was raining when the candles finally came out smelling like dish soap. The restaurant was empty so Damien and I scribbled in our notepads. I’ve worked at so…