He kept the things that were best. Things blue, and white, and the colors of skin in Caracas, Buenos Aires, Toronto, Cincinnati, San Francisco. He kept them poorly; he threw away the translucent box cover for the book on the body I’d given him, the one so dear I returned to the shop’s shelves my …
Our train broke down in the frozen heart of the taiga. At first we were startled. We had grown accustomed to the relentless presence of the engine, the way that it throbbed beneath our toes and thrummed through our veins. When we tried to rise, we stumbled and then tried again. How strange it was …
The man called first thing on Mondays. The clinic was open every day except Sunday, and the day off had nothing to do with God. Every week, Virginia unlocked the glass doors, wiped down the countertops, and took her seat at the front desk. She booted up the computer and waited for the man’s call …
We didn’t care, really, about the traveling euthanasia veterinarian’s failed marriage. We didn’t care about why this woman showed up nine hours later than she said she’d arrive. I don’t know all of this for certain. I’ll admit that I’m making some suppositions. I’d like to say that I could call Miranda and fact-check the …
Alva sits under the tree. The leaves make a second sky if you look up at the right angle, and pretend you have forgotten how you came to be there.Alva is and is not me. Sometimes I’m tired of walking around in the same ole body, under the samefoam-ceilinged sky or the too-blue August onewith …
I hear the damp thud, the rustle of grass. Glass packed in skin like both arms barbedin pure light, and I imagine that, the girl’s hum wound around a throat mired with soil.Choir of car horn and crickets chirp an elegy I’ve revised from every wrecked angle, one sidemessed with antifreeze, another folded delicate as …
Beneath the hazed moon, this hazed absence of stars,how the hearts of the frogs are breaking!How they stretch and bloat the fine elasticof their chests, and how their bloated heartsare so greatly breaking! This night of camp-tent swelter belongs to the frogs; the distant car rattling slowly home and the nameless, distant dog knownothing of …
A century ago, our skies were rife with Ectopistes migratorius— wild passenger pigeons—doves. A boy could shoot up in the air, and thundering flocks would rainon his face, on his shoulders—a miraculous abundance of quail in this desert.Ruthlessly, we shot bird after bird darkening the noons with migrations for miles on miles. Why, in the …
So you can’t be anycomfort—soft moon of her joyfolded in rain, the dog leadingher by the arm to one or otherlichen-flecked green and purple stone—so youaren’t. You’ll go on.Watch the smallboats, weightless as dew,idle in the sound, flashing theirpoints of light.I’m alive in here.And need herto do the same—her fiery signal washed in blue haze.I …
They were mostly kind.In the morning they drank coffeeand looked out the window. There were trees.Every morningthey rinsed their cupsand placed them in the sink for anyone to find.Their handswere nervous but busy.In the afternoon they worried what balls of claycould be made into smaller balls of clay.They clapped when they neededto clap. Every afternoon …