New World Writing

Jackie put her high tops, under­wear, and tank top in the freez­er under a bag of Tyson bread­ed chick­en ten­ders. An hour lat­er she took them out and put them all on. She didn’t wear socks in the high tops. She put on sun­glass­es. Then she walked to –more

Bendable, Poseable Jesus of Nazareth Defines Grace

Grace is a swal­low of freeze-your-balls-off cold water
in sum­mer near­ly any­where in the Middle East—therefore,
it’s the sweet feel­ing you’re alive and present in the world.

The ruined world, cer­tain­ly. But goofy-hope­ful, nonetheless.
Don’t –more

My father, the state-prison guard, says some of his cells have been opened now, the men he watch­es going home the same way he does. He says those men won’t report for any sort of work tomor­row. He says the Governor has freed them, not the virus. –more

Green Anole

1.
I kept a lizard’s skeleton
in a six-inch cedar box
I car­ried around the house.

I added a blue jay feather
and a pink nub of quartz
and wrote inside the lid—

I won’t tell you what.
Tattered hide clung
to ribs and backbone.

2.
Crouched in –more

The Scream

There is a woman in the city here walk­ing around and con­duct­ing her day-to-day life with the mem­o­ry of an argu­ment, a scream­ing match, that had hor­ri­ble con­se­quences. Or rather, that end­ed bad­ly; bad­ly in the extreme. It would be wrong to ascribe the –more

The day after my hus­band moves out, I tell my daugh­ters, busy doing home­work, I plan to go for a long walk. Instead, I take a short walk, to the beer and sausage place in the Mission. I order my favorite dou­ble IPA and read a chap­ter of a nov­el. But –more

At the apple orchard we’re walk­ing, after the moth­er and daugh­ter farm­ers at the counter give us our waxy paper bags, and it’s a lit­tle too late in the season—too few apples left, and often rot­ted. There are few­er peo­ple here than –more

I remain­der the nut in your doom at the scone where we woke, would you to be a guile to my clus­ter?  My roost, next to yours.

Your  mouth, would always appre­hend your phoenix so gruffly! She, your motif, had no infec­tion after your dam’s decline, –more

Vancouver in Rain

Vancouver, how they some­times hate you
Being so wet! You could leave all
Your low­er con­tent in dark & cold, with yesterday’s
Newspapers, fly­ers, flow­ers, leaves & even
Tales pick­led in the pools or pud­dles full of –more

Open Field Identity

I was a pink ango­ra sweater slight­ly aller­gic to myself. How
can a col­or not the col­or of my skin suc­ceed so well in saying

flesh. I wear myself in his car, slide over on the seat. I was
the table of contents—prelude, footnote—running away

from the –more

Ebbie drops Clair off for karate at the strip mall dojo on Thursdays at 3:30 and takes an hour for her­self across the street in the cof­fee house where she can sit and stare out at the traf­fic or at the line inside and legit­i­mate­ly not think about emails –more

Junaid’s grip on her hand tight­ens; eyes pop open, and she eas­es her hair out of its bun, let­ting it rest at the base of her neck. They are watch­ing: the chil­dren have stopped kick­ing the deflat­ed lit­tle ball around and have gath­ered to stare at –more