New World Writing Quarterly

She entered the tiger exhib­it as one of them; lick­ing her paws as if pricked by thorns, prowl­ing the lim­it­ed space, wait­ing for raw meat to plop down when and where it did every­day. the oth­er tigers observed her as an imposter, but the chil­dren around –more

She was half angel, half angel dust, with eyes like coal mines that could cave in any time. Wore my dirty tee shirts straight off the floor. Wrote i love the fuck out of you in pur­ple lip­stick on the cracked bath­room mir­ror; keyed when –more

Reawakening

chaos in town. a viral siege

our words are wings fly­ing across cities
you, there; me, here. us — two
worlds a/part

above, the sky thickens
like the locust swarms of March
sweep­ing through Nairobi

down here, we await it daily -
as the fig­ures roll –more

When he sowed, he’d been opti­mistic. Wow. He’d gone to the IHOP and done some seed genet­ics cal­cu­la­tions on a nap­kin. Majestic seed genet­ics cal­cu­la­tions. Now it was October and just look at that front yard. Misery. The cucur­bits could best be –more

LOVE IN TIMES OF WAR

The air glim­mers with pollen,
smog and haze. A meltdown
of the sens­es. I think of tanks
scur­ry­ing like mice across
the bor­der. Armed fiends in green
bring new mean­ing to being
a sol­dier of (mis)fortune. All
feel­ings –more

When four-year-old Doug threw his Jesus Christ orna­ment into the fire­place, every­one in the fam­i­ly jumped up at once, but his grand­moth­er Deb led the way. Deb was a retired high school English teacher with a beautician’s pos­ture and unusu­al­ly long –more

She spent hours look­ing for the per­fect sink. Farmhouse sinks with enam­el apron fronts, vin­tage cast iron with attached drain­boards, stain­less restau­rant-grade util­i­ty sinks. She want­ed a lit­tle style, she told him, a lit­tle upgrade to what had rust­ed –more

*
From the same mag­ic spell that’s not air
you lay bare two suns–a blind­ing run
before there was any life on Earth

–what fol­lows already knows
how love would work and went for it
though nobody will say where that star went

except when reach­ing out –more

It was the week­end and I rode my bike to the riv­er. Someone had set up a ramp for stunts. Kids were ramp­ing their moun­tain bikes off of the ramp and into the riv­er, leap­ing from the seat at the last minute to try and grab a large knot­ted rope that –more

(a cen­to)

The prob­lem of psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly dis­tort­ed deities is an extreme­ly com­plex sub­ject, which tran­scends the lim­i­ta­tions of the present work. In the east, I could see Jupiter ris­ing, fat and blur­ry. We begin to rec­og­nize the mon­u­ments of the bour­geoisie –more

Raymond Burr, the actor who played Perry Mason, buys an island in the Republic of Fiji and calls it Nowheresville Inc.

On his island, Raymond Burr, the actor who played Ironside, rais­es orchids, cat­tle and Space Food Sticks.

Raymond Burr, whose scenes –more

my mom gave me
perfume
for my birth­day this year.

it came in late
and inside a bottle
five times smaller
than what we expected.

it didn’t even have
a spray nozzle.

sim­ply
one small stick of plastic
attached to the cap
so i would drop –more

The Big Book of Elephants

The ele­phant keep­er sat out­side the ele­phant enclo­sure read­ing The Big Book of Elephants. The weath­er was per­fect for such an endeav­or, –more

Confession of a Woman who Preaches

I haven’t done one of these in a long time.
Please indulge me.

As a senior in an exclu­sive pri­vate high school, Ivy League recruiters were not strangers to me. As sopho­mores and juniors, our small class of 32 took time off from class­es to tour first –more

Enemies

I’m not afraid, not at the moment, I don’t even have any ene­mies. I’m not defend­ing myself, even though I’m not afraid to, since some­body told me they’re look­ing tired I’m not even using my hands any­more. Not mount­ing a defense, or offer­ing –more

Natalie came back. She brought our bed and the pots and pans. I couldn’t believe it. I crawled up off the floor and she cooked us eggs and made me human again. I scratched her back. Braided her hair. Worshipped her every square mil­lime­ter. –more

June 21, 1984
Deaf Smith County, Texas

I.

Moonshot Rodriguez used to mash up light­ning bugs and smear them on his front teeth. His grand­pa had named him, and told him the grave­yard was haunt­ed with the light of spe­cial lives. Moonshot believed him. He –more

I walk across the street, bring­ing the Sangria I con­coct­ed, the veg­an choco­late truf­fles, the banana bread I made for the first time with­out eggs. I have fun bak­ing and cook­ing stuff that is pre­sumed to be healthy.

I see these peo­ple often, wav­ing –more

My best friend, Olivia, was a sar­dine wedged into her father’s base­ment, liv­ing in the space between two pressed palms, cocooned under the ground. Maybe that’s why she always talked about things that go up, up, up. She want­ed to be a pilot, or –more