Because the snack bar serves friedbologna & the cocktail loungepours pinot grigio from the can& if Jeffrey “The Dude”Lebowski lived in Ohiothis would be HIS PLACE.Outside these doors they callyou Rosie or Bobby. Hereyour name is Crusher. TheHammer. BOOYAH! Youare part of a roster—a teamof Magic 8 Balls & BowlingBabes, Gutter Guards &That’s How We …
for long i couldn’t figure out the meaning of words, their judgment, how to be precise, like an assignment in fifth grade on cardboard, precisely acceptable and precisely insufferable, or what to say to be through—a study of motives, a look without breaking eye contact with the tool that will hurt me. i’ve since taken …
the start. the crossing of borders. the migrants in migrant clothing—dilapidated walls roofed by the sight of overlords. the destination a sewage with salary.the excavated back of a dream. the myths where we are always stealing something.the danger sign in our rubiginous faces. the preference for tall and white. the eyes who look at us …
the only histories you thought possible hurt, so your futureswere just bruises waiting to bloom until you saw bruises not givenby fathers for the first time. sometimes in summertime, boys gatheredbehind barns after work & fought. there was no understanding yetof the masculine form. the boys who hadn’t been beaten had fistsof sugar & threw …
you tried to breathe as your hands drowned in their salt-cured prayerswhile your father stood over you & considered the rum-rotted thoughtof how much hurt would be enough, as if it were your body & notyour mind that was plastic. but you’re never more porous than as a child& you took so much from your …
while collecting bones & grief’s secrets in the brackish shoals,you found a bottle buried among the muddy sand & broke the cork’ssalt-crystal seal. the floral flight of honey filled you, broke upyour childhood’s iodine brine. you anointed a hand withthe sweet stuckness & considered the way the light held you—untilyour hand’s halo disintegrated as a …
titled with a line by Lyn HejinianThe lisp went unnoticedbecause I was mute as a swan, no one spoke to mein turn I spoke to no one, it was time as riverand the river long as the Hudson,not a stroke of it depicted by the River School. I hear tulip trees blossomin showy fashion, though, …
In the 1979 “counterclockwise” study, eight elderly men were asked to spend a week together at a retreat staged to look, feel, and sound like 1959. The men all “showed dramatic improvements in their hearing, memory, dexterity, appetite, and general well-being.”Cover me in the blue film of new appliances.Let me be freshly delivered and undented.I …
between my ribs, somewhere:1 fluxes of heat and carbon,2 reefs of sky, ships3 whose names have long eroded.4 we wore ourselves weary during5 a summer squall,6 the waters rising7 —events preserved in8 root-bronzed water.9 graves everywhere so many shades:10 deep blue skull,11 old milk tin,12 lingering green below the wake.13 we bury our history14 in …
A girl in a green dress with a white sash for Christmasis easily ruffled.Why can’t you stand still?Why do you talk so much?Yes, the mouth is stuffedwith words, the smile a bit wryas the flash bears downlike car headlights,and the eyes, you can hardly see, but they’re no less redthan the glassy eyes of the …