Alaina Bainbridge

My mother is an empress of the closed mouth. She can look at any stone and decree it commonwithout saying a word. She sleeps with a revolver under her pillow in a bed of diamonds and sweat.When they came for our people, she tells me,your grandmother hid an entire chandelier in her jaw.My mother forces …

I disappear as I turn sideways, dissolving into the split wall, humming as my face rests in the white light of the refrigerator.I can survive here for years, hiding out within the kitchen walls, between white bread, Milanos, a jar of stone mustard, a rotting bell pepper.So much of me turns into nothing. In the …