We take our chairs out into the sun where the small poodle can run laps round the bougainvillea or curl in the bowl made between the old lady’s bathrobed knees. I sit across from her as she strokes its furred skull with her freckled hands. She is delighted to tell me how the scorpion—tiny, genius …
For the moment, speech is paused.In the silence of the restaurant, we consider the orange flesh, sagittal as a stilledtongue, before placing it on our own.Like most forms of magic, I’ve always believed in words. For instance, the time you told meit was over. Not that what you’d saidwas true, but that by saying it …
as it was clear on the sign and in all the mindsof everyone she knew. If lost, then how could it be found to name? Better then called known, as in all knowedthe way through the forest of the valley floor to water that occupied a bed willingly. The girlgot off the beaten path and …
1 We were in a little beachfront restaurant when lightning struck a manmaybe thirty feet awayrushing for shelter from the sudden storma whiteout explosion the shock poured down through himand into the sandthen rose up through the bodiesof his four friends and they all collapsedand were dragged insidewhat I’ve learned are Lichtenberg figureslifting on their …
I took the smallest of leaps today & nearly catapulted my body into the river afterward. Every little act is fireworks on my tongue, an unfolding like an origami fortune teller, creased paper holding all the answers, never giving you a straight path. I haven’t let myself feel this way in a while, a body …
During that last funeral, before the end of funerals, I discovered a dozen tiny holes where the moths did their invisible work in the sleeves of my suit. Like a cancer’s thread, the gold spider holding on, even as the day turns its gloss toward home. One after the next, each owner throws down his …
look closely she sayson screen a green nothing emerges from formulated dirt explodes fully grown in five seconds starbirth of red and yellowpetals at the speed of impatience whose typically invisible daytime dance is betrayed by motion sensors embedded in the growth chamberthe Schrenck’s tulip has a wide growing range from Iran to Russia she …
Dear god once again waking in a field hilts of swords surrounding me blindfoldedjust kind of casually tied up again Kind of forgot this happens to me Momentarily forget what to do Scream but be quiet since he might still be there In the field of my body I feel each of the eight winds …
Somewhere, a river searches for a mouth to flow into, emptying itself into all the wrong bodies, losing its own in the process.Yesterday, a silver lake. Today, a shallow creek. Tomorrow, an eight-bellied serpent snaking through a valley.At the foot of a mountain a body of water gathers itself before splittinginto two tongues licking past …
Having tumbled in the thorns & sobered. Having thumbed the sourcebook for how we imagined the conditioned air, its maiden voyage through the high windows. The film of old Victorian homes succumbing along with the screens of the drive-in, all chopped at their feet. Having stood in that debris & called it an interstate. The …