When the bike messenger on his bike was speck-small in our sight, Headmaster said never mind our afternoon lessons.
“Follow me,” he no-nonsense bossed, and all the way along the path, past the goat pen and the shed for the hoes and spades and other
Atop a pile of basement boxes
the black fur drapes in repose
as its jaws widen with ivory canines
and a ramp of pink tongue leading nowhere—
cold eyes gaze across the stiff licorice
snout of a precious teddy.
The
I
In high school, after I ran my mouth too much and Ronnie Bosman dropped me with one hammer punch to the face. I remember that when I came to my best friend, Lance, was already saying something about how it wasn’t that bad and nobody would remember
It was wet and cold and miserable, and his dog was fat. Fatter than yesterday. Nobody needed a telescope to see how the dog was overfed, his snout buried in his own neck.
The captain, biting on his pipe, asked her to take off her bonnet. She removed
The peach tree lives for how many years and one day it keels over with the wind. Last year there were peaches. This year it can’t hold its weight. So we have to tear it apart so we can burn it. When did it start to diminish and crack? Does every
At fifteen Anne bought her first action figure—Wonder Woman. When she saw her on television in her blue starry shorts, legs rising out of red boots, steel cuffs, and gold tiara, Anne fell hard. No girl could match the Amazonian Princess Diana who
the patterned tiles gleam
on bathroom floors
spilled bathtub water could
never be sold
here i keep my
aromas bottled and slathered
for every morning shower
lather, lather
my lavender
calm, yet another
trapped sun
caged inside
a paper
Note: These poems are from Cheapside Afterlife, a book-length sequence that reimagines the life of the 18th-century poet Thomas Chatterton. At age 16, Chatterton invented the imaginary persona of a 15th-century
he says let’s melt crayons into a big rainbow and we peel them with our rough fingernails, lay them in a metal pan, ROYGBIV, turn on the oven. It’s summer, my dad’s at work, mom at school, and we are looking for a snack when my brother yelps
Translated by Toshiya Kamei
A threadlike pale light wrapped around your body, melted, and dispersed into the morning air. Cocooned by the sun’s rays seeping into the stable, you caressed my mane as you hummed a tune. Then you replenished the water
We were the kids who never got called to the advisor’s office, asked what our plans were for college. We didn’t go to the football games or pep rallies, didn’t play in the band. We were the kids no one bothered to bully because we were country
Tommy and Bobby. Geometry class. Def Leopard tee shirts and gelled-up hair. They were like the fruit our mothers taught us to put back. Apples with bruises, berries gone squish. They weren’t much, but then, neither were we. Fleshbelt under our crop
As a child, my front teeth dangled over my lower lip like escapees from dental prison. Braces fixed my overbite, but not my diastema—the space between my front teeth—which men found alluring although I did not. Cosmetics aside, they were serviceable
They stand in the middle of a hollowed-out 7‑Eleven, searching for food or water or some artificially-sweetened salvation, but all of it is gone. Not even a pack of cinnamon Trident or a spicy Slim Jim to be found, and they’ve looked in every corner,
I kneel beside a bag of mulch, digging with a trowel between two stone-encased flowerbeds, when the thought of our future holiday in Russia makes me hum “Vacation” by the Go-Gos. I added the trip to my bucket list after Aunt Masha’s funeral.
Dad says, “In the little cartridge, you mean.”
“Right,” I say, “but also one inside?”
He leaves the bathroom. Goes downstairs. I wait there with his red-gold piss still steaming in the bowl. The barrel should be pointed roughly where my feet
Maybe still in the recovery room, I hear my Nana say, it’s okay honey, there are plenty of other fish in the sea.
Later, not in the recovery room, I’m feeling formal, a little hungry. So Swoon and I decide to go out for a fancy oyster dinner. We
Mom made us wait at the top of the boarding stairs for Dad. A pilot and former pilot trainer, he’d popped into the cockpit to compliment the CAT crew on a smooth landing. The C‑119’s shrieks still rang in my ears as soldiers in flared jeans and
We brought a dime every Friday to slide into a slot inside a card featuring a smiling girl on crutches. I loved seeing my card fill up. When there were ten dimes, we would start again on a card with a crippled boy. Miss Klein, our fourth-grade teacher,