2044 5 3
|
She wants her mother back and all I can give her is this—over and over. She doesn't want my mouth, wants no kissing anywhere even. Just this. Like this—quiet and rough. Quiet because her stepfather is napping in the bedroom next to…
|
204373
|
His wings were down when he got into the truck. It was a used UPS truck we’d bought from someone in Berkeley, and we painted out the letter “S,” so that it just read “UP.”
|
2043125
|
The right is empty, waiting to receive the load like a catcher behind home plate.
|
20431918
|
He was a tenth grade / messiah, famous for acts of attrition.
|
204300
|
But there, up the street, just coming into the corner of the window, someone was in the middle of the road. Walking literally down the middle, dragging one leg like it was heavy or broken, carving a fat line next to the skinny one the good one made.
|
2043105
|
The waters rose / on the earth
|
204372
|
A lowing cow cracked open the darkened room like the yawn of a gravid alien.
|
204300
|
Momo told me not to mind her, but I did. At night, after he'd tucked me in, I could hear him on the phone in the living room, talking for a long time. Early this morning he woke me up and gave me my backpack. ‘Put some clothes in here', he said. ‘We're going on a trip.'
|
204397
|
the observation, at the end, more/
important than the being there—
|
204263
|
At night, instead of sleep, there were new and secret pleasures. Half-awake lessons in dexterity, in the limber material of human life.
|
2042911
|
The understanding we made was neatly wrapped up in its own blue tissue cocoon like a neatly rolled joint and dumped unceremoniously into the forgotten past like a plate of leftover digitized lies. The lid was slammed shut. Time passes too tightly. And you …
|
204252
|
The storm grew in might until it spawned the worst kind of tornado, an F-5 or Finger of God.
|
2042125
|
|
20422315
|
proving little more/
than the player’s keyboard dexterity.
|
204282
|
Jerry tries to be funny saying, I think Charlie Brown should kick Lucy in the head when she pulls the ball away; either that or they start making out. Ewww, but they're both eight years old, Sandra says biting her lip, tying off her smile. Jerry won't focus on her…
|
204295
|
so for penance, the priest gave me the full twelve Stations of the Cross
|
204200
|
He said he'd searched in vain for his wife, Mary, before abandoning hope and the ship in one of the last row boats. He was allowed in because of his experience fishing.
|
2041144
|
"What I need to wear the ring for," I said to myself, "I already got his last name..."
|
204173
|
My favorite was a red bowler, a man's hat, which I never dared wear outside my tiny bedroom. My three brothers wanted it too much to take that kind of a risk. They'd poke me with various sharp objects: the serrated edge of the bread knife, the rusted TV
|
20411711
|
She drew her hands out of the chest cavity and looked at the clock.
‘Time of death,’ she said.
|
2041153
|
He stopped the shower and recounted his life, now Kin-less and plain.
|
204100
|
So this is what hate feels like. I glare at her, across the room standing there with him. Tall, blond, slender, perfect complexion, adorable smile, and bright eyes; and him and his lean athletic build, soft square jawline, charming smile, deep blue gree
|
204088
|
You just watch, the schoolteachers’ll be next and then you’ll see shit go down. Imagine what happens when a fifth-grader sees his teacher getting frog-marched through a crowd on YouTube.
|
204054
|
I am a sunflower. I turn my yellow and black face, bruised, to the sun, hoping its light will heal me. With my eyes closed I can see my stamen, veins in my eyelids, bulbous where they intersect. The sun feeds…
|
20402514
|
Did we get Jihadi John?/
And the highway to Mosul?//
What’s the score?
|
2040209
|
My mother’s old china no longer reflects. It’s value is now estimated as drywall.
|
204061
|
I can feel the souls
of those who perished
here
They’re still here
like old kites
hanging in the sky
tattered, but they
won’t come down
or can’t come down
just yet
because they haven’t
fulfilled their
unborn promises
t
|
204020
|
I made my way quietly out back and sat in Helga’s whitewashed porch swing, listening to the first faint sounds of big band music drift out of Helga’s open windows and into the cooling summer air. The darkness was moving in slow from the east, interrup
|
204041
|
I think theorems and hypotheses
but all that comes out is punching and smashing
frustrated hate flows where I'd prefer to know love.
|
203953
|
Once upon a time, my friend and I met a nanny pushing a baby carriage and reading an e-book. She wore a plaid dress, blue stockings and a white barrette. A set of wrinkles marred her tanned brow. Multitasking seemed too hard on her.
Inside the carriage
|
