They’ve posted their warnings
on trees on fence posts on telephone timber / at the entrance to access roads / because admit it // you are scheming right now this very / as these words gather and guideContinue reading→
I Want to Take You Home (That’s Dying, Baby)
I’m an acolyte of the corn fields. Baby, if you fall in love / with me, you will have to convert. My family only knowsContinue reading→
Communion
They materialize at dusk at the edges / of driveways and sidewalks, in the middle / of the quiet dead-end, hands asway, / intermittent wipers desperate to clear / clouding swarms of gnats.Continue reading→
point beach
hometowns have thousands of little ghosts / that do not stay in the cemetery. they are / pushing up through the renovated sidewalk, / catching you between the cracks. Continue reading→
Still Quitting Kansas
Eleven years ago today, at four-thirty / in the afternoon, just eighteen months / after I buried my son, I shuttered the house / my father built and drove my mother / back East, the veil over her lungsContinue reading→
Crescent Heights
The desiccate syllable / solo and trashblown / against a chain link / fence. The sky occasioning / itself impossible and blue / above us. So it’s come / to this? Is it what it is?Continue reading→
Larkspurs and Saltwater
1995 A day trip to Jalama Beach, by way of the flower fields. Today is the last day I will smell the purples and creamy whites, all the shades of...Continue reading→
Towards Zero
Eighty kilometers outside Kolkata International airport, and your busy bee life is a vibrant static reflection on a lavender-rose, wrapped by the rental company’s ribbon. Your musing, a scrawl upon...Continue reading→
She Cooks Well, Too
“Bina! Come downstairs! They’re here!” My grandmother yells to me, frantically trying to fix the dupatta which keeps falling away from my face. Could you be more Indian? I swat...Continue reading→
Second Hand
On our summer vacation to Washington state, my mother pulls me back from Mount St. Helens with her gingham oven mitts. She is careful to protect her own hands when...Continue reading→
Sam Ellisen’s Confession
Nobody should be out this far without a car, Sam Ellisen thought. The sun beat down on the long stretch from Mesquite to North Las Vegas. Cars ran hot, and...Continue reading→