Bristles
Marigold wanted a Chihuahua. George gave her a Royal Dansk Butter Cookie tin. What burned was the Chihuahua could not in it be. There was no chance of it, but Marigold peeled the lid off anyway on this her seventieth birthday, and saw the stupid thing, a silver hat squashed down in there. She stared…
Read MoreTwo Poems
We Were Such a Fine Plum Pudding Temptation it isto read your spread palm,the abbreviated lifeline and bad fortune,as palm to palm we are no more,nor plum to plum. Such a fine pudding we made,the long slow steam to perfection,the struck match, the two of us drenchedin cognac and served in a blaze.And oh! the…
Read MoreThe Blue Book by That Woman
Where is human nature so weak as in the bookstore? —Henry Ward Beecher Whenever I run across one of those surveys detailing how little Americans read—and get past the irony that I might be the only person reading the survey—my first thought after “Damn, really?” is always “You, Mr. Pollster sir, have never worked in a…
Read MoreMore Moon, More Stars
I am the night when you close your eyes and see nothing, not even a dream or speck of color already fading, when I close a door on the ones I love and walk away, when I put a letter in the drawer and do not mail it and the words remain hidden from sight,…
Read MoreTwo Poems: Waves of Boys; We ran in a pack
Waves of Boys Buoys bob in waves,wave ships to safety most days,boys on each boat thankfulfor the help in rough water. Rough rocks hungry for the young,mouthy crags chafed by buoys chainedthere like fishhooks.The channelcorners here and the coroneris too familiar.Some nightsthe hunger of rockswaves in to shore, so wide and highit pulls the buoys…
Read MoreByrdie Draws Birds
Shortly after I arrived in McAllen, Texas, I misread a scene. My four-year-old grandson, Byrdie, had set himself up to draw at the kitchen table: a stack of white paper, the big plastic tub of crayons. When his two-year-old sister wanted to join him, Byrdie ran to the other end of the table to help…
Read MoreTart
As you dip your hands into the cool bowl of flour, the alligator drags its belly up on to the Palmetto grass. Your daughter is a few yards away from it, burying marbles in the damp creek soil, her small body brown with sun. You are making an apple tart, even though Andrew is adamant…
Read MoreTwo Poems: When the Hard Work Is Done; To My Future Lover
When the Hard Work Is Done I am waiting for the foxes to comeI have been very patientHave let the stillness wrap around this placeHave let the silencePush the dust to settlingEmbalm itself against the hard woodMy mouth is emptyAs the other side of a confessionalOpen to light except for thisFractured wrist of a prayerMay…
Read MoreIn Retail
In retail, if you don’t wanna be a Lucy, you gotta find things to make the bleak a little better. Lucy was that girl that jumped off the fourth floor of the Prominent last summer during her lunch break. She worked in the food court. It’s not that I don’t have respect for the dead.…
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