New World Writing Quarterly

There must be a word
for it: wak­ing up in the
night iden­ti­fy­ing a bounded,
dis­crete, yet repeated
phe­nom­e­non, so profound
and obvi­ous you don’t need
to write it down, but yell
it loud in your head
so –more

A bell jin­gled as the door of Snackville Junction opened. The café sign with a fat chef hold­ing a spoon blinked on. A man came in and sat at the counter.

“Little late for lunch, Mister,” said the waitress.

A pass­ing freight train with pig­gy­back –more

The vio­lins were miss­ing some­where with­in the mir­ror. The strings curl around the elas­tic of  my partner’s shoes as he lifts me up. It braids through the soft pink rib­bons and snaps as it approach­es my ankle. Still I count one, two, three, four, –more

Summer 1971, I lived with six women from Trinity College, DC.  The only male house­mate, I sort of slipped in and stayed. Previously, this Harvard Street res­i­dence had been the tran­sient house of the Radical Lesbians four doors up. Once, while I was –more

The First

The drunk­en old street-wreck had been tread­ing on exceed­ing­ly thin ice late­ly. (Not such a stretch on this por­tion of the equa­tor in fact, where there were numer­ous rinks and sculp­tur­al fan­tasias of var­i­ous kinds.) Emboldened recent­ly, the –more

“The music I love is by dead peo­ple,” my father says.

We’re head­ed to Mom’s in his truck, but he’s on a dif­fer­ent trip.

“Dee Dee, Joey, Johnny, Tommy. All gone.” He turns up the vol­ume over the blast of the heater, and I eye the screen –more

bananas

I liked them almost green, she pre­ferred them soft.
You might be think­ing that I’m speak­ing of
the way we slurred our men, but when
I fucked up, when she thought I might become
three scoops of haz­ard drenched with nuts,
–more

First day on the job and the only work shirt that fits Mohammad has “Bob” embroi­dered above his heart. Buttoning up the dark blue oxford, Mohammad jokes about how easy it is to spell. His first cus­tomer, a tiny old woman need­ing new wind­shield –more

Fred had a pas­sion for vermin—to put it inac­cu­rate­ly. In fact, he had a pas­sion for their exter­mi­na­tion, for nov­el meth­ods of effect­ing their cap­ture and destruc­tion. He had a pas­sion, too, for obses­sive obser­va­tion of his traps; he need­ed to bear –more

How It Started and Where It Went

Clouds limped up the mar­ble steps of the sky
over Tower Road by the cemetery,
its gray slabs stick­ing out, snaggle-toothed,
from the soft gums of earth
that morn­ing you showed me the note
left on your wind­shield, vague­ly –more

Telos

Mama, I don’t pick fights with anyone
but if my telos as Master’s dis­ci­ple is to be a megaphone
for oth­ers, don’t you won­der what happens
if when I speak all I hear are echoes?

In high school, run­ning all the way to Chambers
I laughed –more

One Afternoon

The sky chose to wear blue and the dog put on her boots and we  went out walk­ing. She sniffed the ground for scat as the sweet scent of lilacs waft­ed into her nos­trils and mine. We walked down to the riv­er run­ning through the park. As geese pad­dled –more

Horse with No Name

He’s been on my back for three days. You’d think a shrunk
104 pounder wouldn’t be so heavy. But the Nevada desert
is bru­tal even in March and he wants to hit the Strip — should
be fun, an hon­or but he keeps steer­ing me off the –more

.… MEDCAT. The Bar. Driver’s license knowl­edge test. Jeez! It’s like prep­ping for an exam. But can you prep for death with twen­ty par­lor game ques­tions? … Twenty Questions. You remem­ber— oh, of course not. Well before your time. –more

Not much to see in Tascadora, Texas. Rough strip of road, two liquor stores, three church­es. The Happy Harvest Grocery, its park­ing lot smooth as buttercream.

Tessa holes-up in her mini­van next to the cart return cage. Red vel­vet is the cake of the –more

I. Friction

When they kick her and Ethan and baby Rose out of the hos­pi­tal, Iris thinks how could they be so irre­spon­si­ble? She has no idea how to care for a baby. Look at the fucked up way Ethan installed the car seat. First home, Rose vom­its breast –more

Mats

Sonny and I are look­ing for floor mats for his car. Store after store, hun­dreds upon hun­dreds of mats. No luck. Finally, I take out a knife, tell him I’ll cut myself in two and Sonny can use me as a floor mat. We’ll star –more

Antibody

Where did this heli­copter think it was head­ed? To a protest. Wildfire. High-speed pur­suit. This is New Los Angeles. I almost wrote wildlife for wild­fire. That’s where I’m head­ed, I think, soon. –more

For Dexys Midnight Runners

One day after school, on a side­walk in Northern Kentucky, three hicks beat me up. Earlier, in the lunch­room, a cheer­leader named Dawn asked me to smell a jar of Noxzema. When I bent to sniff, she –more

Summer Rehearsal

People took to us but whis­pered. We talked to every­one. No anx­i­ety. Free. Clowns in a medieval play, reach­ing like new blooms in beat sum­mer sun. We feigned opera in leather jack­ets, drank cran­ber­ry cor­dial from plas­tic cups. Cross-dressed at hap­py –more