New World Writing Quarterly

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

Staple in my Thumb

Our home was close to a skat­ing rink
that was attached to an alli­ga­tor farm.
And Pop did not react when Chris was mak­ing tea
in the cof­fee pot and spilled it down the front of him.

I had dropped a cin­der block on my finger
and Gram poured per­ox­ide –more

Spy (n.): agent, asset, informer, infil­tra­tor, scout, sleeper,
snoop, scout, mole, mule, oper­a­tive, ghost

Spy (v.): 13^th c., from Old French espi­er “espy,” expi­ier “to watch secretively”

Secret (n.): –more

What Can I Say, I’m Not a Landscape

I was an American girl. I learned good love
is me on the bot­tom, fac­ing up; good sex
is me on the bot­tom, fac­ing down. I can overthink
any­thing, even now, lying side­ways between sheets,
inch­es from you, wear­ing naked
like –more

Were he to have the heart surgery noth­ing would change. The morn­ings could come and the evenings would come. The chil­dren would cry, still. He would live. In the gro­cery store park­ing lot he still sat. The berms snow banked. Grim faced –more

Click image to con­tact artist.

Back when NASA was forced to auc­tion exo­plan­et rights in an attempt to raise funds for future mis­sions, my grand­pa Melvin, a hulk­ing wid­ow­er with a mis­chie­vous sense of humor, bid $2,500 and end­ed up as the “own­er” of Ross 128b, one of hun­dreds –more

Mormon Girl

She told me that her father had rent­ed dry­land on the reser­va­tion and in the first year he made more mon­ey off of the crop than he ever had before but the next four years the drought came and was bad, each year worse than the one that pre­ced­ed it, –more