Jenny was certain nobody saw her when she took the slinky shirt from her father's store. It was blue with buttons shaped like cherries, the fabric light as air. She balled it up in her hand. Her father owned a chain of boutiques called Body Electric. The racks were…

by the time he's moves onto knives, she has appeared in next door's window: sliver of nut-pale belly, fingers wet with suds, nails painted bright as glitterballs.

Why don't we do it in a yellow submarine?

Corina's skin is a circus tent. Her red-striped peppermint scars are a reminder of Christmas and family traditions. The obedient poodles of her childhood dreams jumped through hoops of fire until they became bald and grotesque. Poor dears, now, they no longer yap. They…

I sat at the kitchen counter, aware of a heaviness, a numbness, in my flesh, my bones, my mind. My dancer's body -- short, trim and 108 pounds -- felt as huge and unmoving as the…

out here the land/speaks in Quaker silence

Our Lord Savior Google/ answers prayers without prejudice/ and leaves the self-hatred up to you

I had no portent this would occur, / Ne'er did I see this happening, / Not days before, nor those coming;

Her boyfriend is into U.S. presidents and professional wrestling. He is reading biographies of both occupations and says this helps him to appreciate gray area, decisive action. Lives of great men, he explains.

Occasionally I will pick up a quarterly— As a budding poet, to do what I oughterly, And peruse the pages for helpful examples That I can crib or use as samples.

Where scenery is property and time is a straight edge; where the clouds are billowed and still; where one sees a tinfoil ocean and perspective to the east; where the static waves begin to move; where an immobile sky rustles and kneels. Our eyes looking still are the…

Another Saturday in April. Another set of scars.

At any moment, she'll come outside to pick up the day’s newspaper. He can see it resting beneath the blooming crape myrtle, its plastic wrapper glistening with dew.

We have become// the sum of our appetites,/ the growth curve of our dominion.

Now it was black line, wall, turn, and black line.