New World Writing Quarterly

To break down is what we’re designed for. Lungs, lan­guage, ele­va­tors. A per­son can only climb sev­en floors before they grow old, before extinc­tion, and it’s me they call. Shaman, doc­tor, repair man. An ele­va­tor is a machine –more

Randall Morgan pre­ferred to sit in the back row, whether it be
in air­planes, cars, even the mega-whop­per-dare­dev­il roller coast­er at the
Little Heaven amuse­ment park.  He was a cool play­er, didn’t say much,
–more

Truck Stop

We were dri­ving across coun­try back to Denver and lost Odie’s leash. He need­ed to go for a walk and was young then and would run off. I pulled over at a Love’s Truck Stop in the mid­dle of nowhere Kansas think­ing they might –more

We had spent many hours watch­ing peo­ple talk on the T.V.

Well, Joan said. So we drove back.

The hills were down to the earth. Each was a bare dirt heap, or a com­pli­cat­ed geo­log­i­cal jut.

The trees—which we had known and liked –more

MURMURATION OR BOONDOGGLE

The meat in the pool—
The rodent pecks the cat—
The cat bleeds the bird—
The bird drinks the dew—

We’ve all seen this episode before.
The cook­ie is red, the cook­ie is blue.

The meat is actu­al­ly bread.
The bread’s beet red.
Red –more

Rumor

If you speak of me, I’ll be sneez­ing. The devil
is spo­ken for, and so am I. Each gos­sip, each
rumor: if only it were true. Usually no one
cares enough about me to say any­thing, kind
or cru­el. Since I sneeze so many times in –more

English, cock­ney at that, the squadron of chil­dren are killers with their for­eign tongues. A new school for the American… At sev­en, she under­stands scarce­ly a word of what they say.

The man in the black suit is her father. –more

ANCHOR HOTEL

a four-sto­ry brick hotel
at 90 Alexander Street in Gastown,
the orig­i­nal settlement
and old­est part of the city,
close to the Port of Vancouver,
was built in 1905
to serve the itin­er­ant male pop­u­la­tions
–more

Went down the Colorado River, got out and camped along the way. A two-per­son tent for the group wasn’t large enough, so instead, we stored all our belong­ings inside the tent, elect­ing to sleep out under the stars. Our bod­ies –more

It was a slow day at the hotel. I kept check­ing my walkie-talkie to make sure it was on. I went down to the laun­dry room.

“What’s up Mr. Moneybags,” Olivia said. She thought it was fucked up I got tips for doing a job –more

My Best Friend

Yes, I have a drink­ing problem
and a mar­malade fix­a­tion, light
dif­fuse and warm com­forts me
whether through whiskey or oranges
or orang­utans. I lurch and heave,
weep and wipe my eyes and blow
my nose and sigh to –more

An ultra­light air­craft over­shoots the run­way and incin­er­ates my aza­leas. The pilot (a per­son I didn’t know) and my can­dy-col­ored flow­ers per­ish sim­i­lar­ly. Flames glow like movie the­ater “Coming Attractions” pro­ject­ed –more

Maigret smiled around his pipe. — Simenon

A great many men
Many of them great
In word and deed, in flesh and fantasy
Were pipe smokers;
These men
Favoured the noble pipe to the shab­by gasper
A trusty Briarwood to –more

Losing a Ring

My father blamed him­self. My moth­er said
he should have lis­tened. Who gives
a four-year-old a gold ring?
                      And that’s how
it was left, like a tree –more

She spot­ted Alvin seat­ed in a pew in the 30^th Street Station, dressed in a wool coat too warm for September. He seemed to be focus­ing on the dig­i­tal board that held depar­ture infor­ma­tion. She’d thought of vis­it­ing –more

Buttonhole

I was at the col­lege for an author talk on a nov­el based on local his­to­ry. A few dozen peo­ple attend­ed and most of us head­ed after­ward to a refresh­ment table loaded with desserts pre­pared by stu­dents in the –more

Even after a day being parked at the trail­head, she has yet to dis­cov­er the name of the trail, this stretch of boot prints in mud from which wet­lands spew, the lake to one side and to the oth­er some tur­tles sun­ning in muck, –more

VOYEUR

My father sat a while under elms and moon
before dri­ving off like the day we played
tug of war with him and his suit­case on the porch.
Hindsight is like long­ing through glass,
every­thing clear but out of reach, hard­ly tit­il­lat­ing
–more

Girasoli

“The Battle of Anghiari (1505) … often referred to as ‘The Lost Leonardo,’ …believe[d] to be hid­den beneath one of the lat­er [Vasari] fres­coes … in the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence. … a scene of a vio­lent –more