And then an old man and I looked through the scrap pile in the back, sifting through lonesome reams of brake pads and spools of cable housing, orphan top…

  There: at mile twelve we stopped at the chattering of some small trees, distant against the low sky doubling itself across the shallow waters of the swamp. What kind…

  It’s the boat I choose for transport into the new year I lie down in its hammered gold, my right shoulder against its curve From this posture, I will…

  I'm the object I am and at times I'm another and am far sitting in water and sand in an echo of burning tongues And dream, yes, I dream the colossal adventure of the…

  Some regrets take the air, almost visibly, bright against the mind’s wide sky. The child you never had, for some reason red-haired. The way you said goodbye to your…

  Dec. 18, 2013, Akure. At night, inside the reflection of a halogen lamp, I told my younger siblings A story about our dead mother. I told the story, my…

  Now day turns ever November as the schoolyard iron and plastic of slides, rings, ladders, and bars stab into the backfat of a grey sky and the children dropping…

  There were enough leaves around my feet to bury a child.   A second moon had been predicted,   but looking up through branches, I saw only bones  …

  drifted to the broken sidewalk— you know the place: past First Ward school (where AA meets now) but before the crest of the hill, before the road narrows so…

  People say that the eyes are the windows to the soul. I don’t know if I believe that. Your hands moving over the blankets were the last indicator of…

  I go through her buttons: that population of immigrants, some humble, prepossessing, some big, shiny hemispheres like the golden dome of a Shiite mosque. Some are eagle-embossed, tarnished from…

  I can’t tell you how happy I am to announce how happy I am. No, really. I can’t tell you— I have no mouth, only the skin of my…