I remember when dust was more beautiful than substance, something uncatchable, something whisked into cat corners. This was home. This was being a child. There is a box of in-season lettuce on the sidewalk beside the glass doors of Karl’s Barber Shop. Ladybugs — many — are sitting on the cardboard folds. Do they sitContinue reading “sub.stance”
Category Archives: characters
Caius
we sleep above the roots our legs knotted our hands folded beneath us listening for the weeds to rinse from our ears all the twitches of the road we have seen all there is, you say, and we will eat what first must be blessed — old hamburger meat and flour tortillas from torn plasticContinue reading “Caius”
Ruby, my dear
(Inspired by Ruby, My Dear by Thelonious Monk) She has forgotten the beats of her lightness the circadian rhythm of rest of motion of rest each passing morning presses into her belly and each passing day cinches around her hips and each passing night brails across her breasts and each passing year reaches a suffocatingContinue reading “Ruby, my dear”
Appomattox
Photo by Skitterphoto from Pexels Sarah, the sky that overlooks you and me, it opened up again today. The light that fills up the dogwoods is the same that curdles the cemetery gardenias. This has become summer once more, so you probably remember how things are colored, and then erased, without me telling you. We have taken toContinue reading “Appomattox”
The last angel of the Lord
I thought I was kneeling before the last angel of the Lord, knees crimped in a puddle of Oklahoma dirt, feet swole in my least pair of shoes. “I am done being exhausted by you,” I cried out. “I have lived my years as well as I knew. I have worn my face as honestContinue reading “The last angel of the Lord”
The nineth part of a sparrow
(Adult language and sexual themes) Thersites: Lo, lo, lo, lo, what modicums of wit he utters! his evasions have ears thus long. I have bobbed his brain more than he has beat my bones: I will buy nine sparrows for a penny, and his pia mater is not worth the nineth part of a sparrow.Continue reading “The nineth part of a sparrow”
Cinnamon Suites
Suite 1 Evelyn-Jean Jones knows she does not look like that beige-blonde girl on page 28 of her brother’s Field & Stream October issue — the page with the below-the-fold advertisement for Kodiak boots and, apparently, women’s shorty-shorts — the magazine he keeps buried under his collage of college brochures — the brochures he broodilyContinue reading “Cinnamon Suites”
soma
(Adult themes and language) The East Coast light was delivered to them each morning on the cheap. It broke apart between the hand hewn beams Joanne loved so much, and then landed on her old West Coast quilt, miraculously complete. Dawn was the first trick of the day, she said: a ragged little something toContinue reading “soma”
The birds
I did not think I would reach the age where a decent 12-year-old single malt would be considered a regrettable choice. I thought by now I would be reading Chaucer, maybe listening to an opera or two. My second ex-wife says Pucccini is good, though he’s no Frankie Sinatra. Now I stand before this mess, examining theContinue reading “The birds”
Unintentional harm
There was a bruise on her thigh the size of my eager young thumb, the shape and color of a cat’s serving of Neapolitan ice cream. It was not my intention to cause her such a harm, but it was the mark of my drowning eagerness for her, a thoughtless expression of my wretched rawness.Continue reading “Unintentional harm”
