New World Writing Quarterly

My Birthday Card

is a burly, three-legged bear wear­ing a pol­ka par­ty hat. GoldieBear and his Three Legs hope your birth­day’s just right! When it arrives four weeks ear­ly, my first thought is you’re drink­ing again and sim­ply spaced on my date. –more

Sure, I can help you with that. The top sights to see in Marrakesh are the Jemaa el-Fna, Koutobia Mosque, and the old city (Medina). Sure, I can help you with that. –more

–more

All the Christmas lights around town were com­ing down, stars and trees and the blink­ing yel­low strings gone street by street and in the morn­ing I was leav­ing. We came in out of the cold blue and ordered beers and Katie told me what degloved meant in –more

Flyover Girl

A wild onion in a red dress
on the Blue Line, en route

to a par­ty where I wallflowered
in place for three hours, while
the whole room revolved around      me

as I watched my squad
shed mer­maid scales
to become sashimi.

We were non­na­tive –more

People will tell you that anniver­saries are hard, as are the “firsts”—the first Christmas, the first con­cert, the first hol­i­day. You can brace your­self for those. You know they’re coming.

Grief isn’t just in the big things, or the obvi­ous. –more

The Flower Monger

The local news informs me this morn­ing that they found his life­less body curled beneath a mul­ti-col­ored blan­ket of flow­ers lying atop a steam­ing grate out­side the Capitol Building after the cold­est night of the year. Over the years –more

Wherever You Are

A city changes you
after a decade or so, and when
you return, even a year later,
the city’s moved on, changing
new peo­ple in its time,
its place. Very rarely,
a stone mid­night, –more

They were in my mother’s garage, packed into a card­board box and left to the nuclear heat of Florida, the bugs, storms, and humid­i­ty. How long have they been in here? I asked my moth­er, and she said, Must be about two years since he –more

Self-Portrait as the Fool

I’ve got one foot dan­gling off a cliff while the oth­er is drip­ping bells from the ankle. I wear par­ti-col­ored har­le­quins & say the truest thing. Careful, it might be tinged nasty, though no one lis­tens to insights when –more

from Fingerling Lakes

Lab

The Bio teacher’s
stepped out for a cigarette

when Fen recoils
from the tar­nished tray

and says she won’t
dis­sect the fetal pig

This body has been
ren­dered unto the Lord

and we do Him injury
to break its vessel

Sylvia’s unim­pressed
–more

He jumps and sings
with hos­pi­tal alarm
and then leans on my shoulder
as he begs me
to wipe away his tears.

He tries to mouth
the word, pur­ple,
then points to the sun,
as if he wants to prowl
to the end of the rainbow.

He wrecks
the TV, the lights, –more

Polaroid

We’ve gone through the rooms togeth­er, assigned
this keep­sake and that. Who knows what
we’ve missed, or over­looked, what’s lost
or for­got­ten, but at least I found the shoebox
stuffed with old pho­tos. It has some­thing
–more

Entrance

When it’s time to enter
I’m stand­ing in line
stand­ing and wait­ing in line
I don’t even know if I’m entering
or wait­ing to enter
is it eas­i­er to enter
when you don’t even know
if you are?
–more

Absurdery

Once upon this time, in a coun­try far away, the ruler was very
old. The red hats had begun to dol­ly him to the podium,

his jack­et flap­ping, at first with the cur­tain closed. He enjoyed
the ride, the breeze of it, like a tilt­ing Segway. –more

Four years ago, fol­low­ing a a fair­ly bru­tal two-year bat­tle with can­cer, my moth­er died; a relief, in the end, though it still does­n’t feel so. Some deep-lying tumour in the breast missed by the usu­al mam­mo­grams and only caught after it had already –more

1

The Wise Woman of Elety was tak­ing her young grand­son along on a boat trip to Joramca, the island of flow­ers. This was the peak sea­son for the rarest blooms. Though she wasn’t sure they would inter­est him, she thought she’d take a chance. She –more

FORGOTTEN WHEELS

Abandoned shop­ping carts
roll like patients in a hospital.
Wheels frozen, spin­ning in puddles,
car­ry­ing the bags of
mid­night customers,
gro­ceries for families
liv­ing in burn­ing buildings.

Footsteps echo in the
park­ing lot,
walk­ing –more

LATE NIGHT, WYOMING, 1972

Ten days out of high school I was on a Greyhound head­ed west with John K. It was his idea to ride bus­es and hitch­hike to California or until our mon­ey ran out. I’d been try­ing to decide what to do with my life, maybe go to –more