I don't have the feelings of self-worth a young woman should have, Monica Lewinsky tells the nation. She seems to understand there will always be some amount of ice beneath her.

we name invasive species,

Some poems slip out easily Thick and solid Well-oiled and fully formed

She liked talking to him, even now, when they’d spent three years talking. She thought about other conversations with other men at other bars, some of the bars on the water and some of them tucked behind shopping centers or off of different h

Something is clearly wrong with them and we're supposed to socialize them.

When a woman dies too young, Say at 42, Her bones broken, Her body bruised Beyond recognition Much less repair; When she dies Thrashing In the street Amid rainbow-hued pools Of water and gasoline And blood, Anointed on a bed Of broken glass In a…

Before my mother died, she developed an unhealthy relationship with Sylvia Plath. Under the faded florescent lights of the university they would speak to each other, as I quietly did my homework. I was only seven, but I knew something was the matter. I…

Amyra pressed her hands on the brick wall and rubbed it. She thought about hanging something on there, but she did not have the tools to make a hole. In fact, the thought of having a hole in the wall would be enough.

It’s a little known fact that eels are often lost in translation – only the spotted variety, not the striped or the common and certainly not the electric.... I think about that lovely hippie girl and her knowledge of eels, sometimes.

The thing that really gets you about the house is the hurricane shutters. They're up already, even though it's the end of May, because Buck's uncle is back in Rhode Island for the summer and he's prepped the house on Key Largo like Armageddon is coming.

We could kiss under the elder tree, even though it was forbidden, even though we were drowned by the noise of the river and nothing we said was right

Two giant greasy hands were working those breasts hard, squeezing and tugging and pulling. She didn't holler.

I sit in my chemise like a forgotten rag doll on the stool before my vanity. My body is postured towards nothing in particular, my gaze keeps returning to vacant; it’s far preferable to any fixed sight it could find.

I’m maybe only four. Not smoking cigarettes found in street gutters yet. That will come the next year, when I’m five. Maybe when I’m six, and Andy’s five, my pal from across the street. That’s my tricycle parked behind this pack of kids that look to be ne

leaches fatten-up