New World Writing

The Republicans start­ed their con­ven­tion in Cleveland, Ohio today. The TV is on with the sound mut­ed, and I’ve raised the blinds to look out the win­dow at the two hawks in my back yard. I’m lying in bed as I watch the hawks, who have no idea they –more

My moth­er leaves a tense mes­sage on my phone. “I need you here tomor­row. I’m out of pads.”

I live nine­ty miles away in New Orleans but I’m on vaca­tion. We haven’t spo­ken in six weeks, since I took my son to vis­it her. She bright­ens around –more

I want to com­mit the details of this win­ter to mem­o­ry and next year I will be able to fig­ure out small dif­fer­ences. All around where I sit at the bar, this black and steel enclave, the roast­ing of cof­fee beans is tak­ing place in gleam­ing met­al –more

The body is a tem­ple and Sundays are for rest. If only you worked hard. Enjoy food but don’t overindulge. Trim your nails and keep them scrupu­lous­ly clean. Likewise see that your chil­dren are bathed and immac­u­late­ly dressed. Do not allow your daugh­ter –more

The year my moth­er dies, my boyfriend catch­es me jump­ing out of the win­dow of our house. We live on the first floor. He stands in the yard with his arms fold­ed across his chest and one eye­brow raised. “I knew you were going to do that,” he says.

“I –more

Before Jake went to Hideaway Lounge, he assessed him­self in his bath­room mir­ror to see if he’d mea­sure up to the younger men. He stared at the top of his head. The glop of gel – a first time pur­chase – solid­i­fied his hair, arch­ing over a –more

I am not the dancer with her left foot some­how wedged against the rail. Not the dancer then or eigh­teen min­utes pri­or as she dashed cry­ing from a build­ing very much alone and mind­less and with­out direc­tion. I’m not her nor sur­prised as –more

I got to Dexter’s house about 6:00 on a warm Saturday October evening. His wife Olivia opened the door wear­ing red Capri pants that looked new, and a white T‑shirt and red san­dals.  She looked like sum­mer and Christmas at the same time, but as I said, it was fall.  She car­ried two shop­ping bags and clutched her keys in the hand that held her red purse.  I couldn’t tell if she was com­ing or going.

The vil­la has small lizards, tokay geck­os. Beads for eyes, ghost jade skin, dis­tinc­tive squawks. At first they were cute, until a cou­ple fell on us dur­ing the night,. I catch a baby, small­er than my favourite fin­ger, under a plas­tic soy bowl, –more

I stood in the park­ing lot of Rudy’s Oil. I hadn’t been to Five Streams since I was a kid. The sky was thin and gray and the air smelled like ice which to me smelled like win­ter. Across the street was a rat­ty white walled con­ve­nience store called Kings. Tacked to the white wall clos­est to the sleepy four-way inter­sec­tion was a hand paint­ed sign that read “Free Coffee While You Play Lottery.”

We use italics
to put elec­tric­i­ty into words.
Then we plug lamps
into the words.
That’s how we light our homes.
Really.

Since the blind­fold out­side of Maude’s Crab Castle, every­thing had been dark­ness and pain. In the park­ing lot, a brusque hand forced him into a trunk fol­lowed short­ly by the sound of a car door closing.

The pain came from the zip tie around –more

It was sort of sur­re­al the way the whole thing unfold­ed. We picked up Grandma and Grandpa in Mom’s Honda Odyssey. Grandpa was wear­ing a plaid short-sleeved shirt tucked into khakis. He had some stub­ble on his cheeks which pricked when I kissed him –more

HANGNAIL

My ex came for three weeks and his leav­ing is over­due so I am going to move but I plan to look out for him and maybe keep my name on this lease if our boys can­not find a ground floor with lots of light and walk­er acces­si­ble. His folks –more

Charlotte doesn’t speak Spanish. She took two years of French in high school and, because she thought it would be fun­ny, a year of Latvian in col­lege to sat­is­fy a lan­guage require­ment, but it wasn’t fun­ny and she got a C. The pro­fes­sor looked at –more