from a novel in progress
The Harris Suites crumbled slowly on the back strip of Virginia Beach. Alex paused and looked up at the bleached yellow paint of the façade. In each room, save one, the window blinds were drawn. Even in the bright sun of midday he could sense the darkness inside those rooms.
My Anger Tours the State Capitol
There were once a girl and a boy who lay on a hill of gravel kissing until their lips were raw. Kissing was the best thing that had ever happened to the boy and the girl, and so they rode their bicycles to the gravel pit every Sunday in pursuit of that sweet, singular pastime.
The woman on the subway looked like my mother so I sat down next to her and said you look like my mother.
Mary Beth
Strictly speaking, as a licensed practical nurse (LPN), it is not my job to manage the table décor, but I do it because I’m good at it. Each resident gets a rose they are welcome to pass on to their valentine-du-jour. Though that’s kind of a sick joke, when you think about it.
Your boyfriend’s sister is studying psychology. She says anyone in the room who doesn’t yawn when someone else yawns is a sociopath, so you fake your yawns when you notice others yawning. You sneak into the bedroom while she’s over and swallow
I texted my mother the night before that I’d be at the house not too late and not too early. Cut from the dark sky bled a pastel pink that seeped up and over the mountain around 6am, which was better than before we set the clocks back.
There was a space station on the news that summer and some mention of the moons of Jupiter and the asteroid belt.
The Space Between: A Meditation
My brain works in spurts: There are two hemispheres and a space between. The space between is filled with synapses, junctions that jump from nerve impulse to an unknown landing space. The space between is the vulnerable sweet spot of juicy possibility. The space between is a chasm, and beautiful, but how we land is entirely up to us.
No one had time to send greeting cards to William, my father, flowers meant for men, maybe an assortment of succulents in a ceramic dish for his coffee table. In his room, the plastic pitcher of hospital water sits beside an empty Styrofoam cup. A paper-wrapped straw lies abandoned on the swing-around tray to hold orange Jell‑O snack packs, never served.
LYDIA
He pushed the flowers into the folds of my apron. Keep walking, he said. Keep walking. So I walked. Then he said, You will lose all your roses walking like that, dear girl.
Sometimes we don’t want to know, frequency
so low we can’t arrive. Gratitude is
a stone in the pocket to remind you
to smile, and also a rock that drags you
down into the black of the glacial pond
to
When I opened my front door to let the detective in, I saw them immediately. They were hanging around her, some right there on the front step and others, a few feet off in the yard as if they weren’t sure they were welcome. There were at least eight of them, some fading in, some fading out. My Tommy was not among them. And that man they’d found dead, that Dr. Fremont, he did not seem to be among them. I wondered if the detective knew she was surrounded. Some people knew; some didn’t.
Portions of her memory slipped through a dark hole. She knew who I was, but just random facts about our history together. She knew we were married, but she did not know for how long, or anything about Elvis in the white leather pants who sang Jail House Rock afterwards when we laughed till we cried.
Hamburg
Martin didn’t want to leave home. But his wife had asked for divorce. He considered the end of his marriage as proof that he had grown timid and dull. He needed to blow up his life, to impulsively live—to become the man he had been before he was married.
Both of their hearts were broken, and they had the same scars slicing their chests in perfect halves. They met in the cardiac ward. Lana had a bypass at thirty-two; Mitch had a transplant at fifty that almost didn’t take and then did. Later, lying together in bed, they pressed their chests together and marveled at the symmetry. He put his ear against her left breast and then leaned back in surprise. “What on earth is that?” he said, and she said, “It’s a bell, of course.”
Gorillahead hates his name, calls it an aberration, but says the situation is too far gone, a nickname that sticks, given by idiots. He walks, knuckles to ground, the way I’ve seen gorillas walk in old pictures, holoflimsy, and long, stuttering reels of Twentieth century film. I tell him I think his name is fitting, minimalist, that it’s a fine descriptor.
In our Family Life class we’d all shared a table and watched Ms. Felton from Planned Parenthood unroll a condom onto a wooden dildo. She talked about single parenthood, how hard it was, how no one helps like they say they will. She was pregnant with her second and constantly patting her tummy. The whole class wanted to be her sitter.