New World Writing Quarterly

The Final Quarantine

“It don’t take long to kill things. Not like it does to grow.”
                                      —Homer Bannon, in Hud

Bulldozers dig a pit wider and
deep­er than any swim­ming hole
and four cowhands on horseback
dri­ve the dis­eased beasts down and
in until hide rubs against hide,
with­ers to thurl, flank to dewlap.
Necks strain above –more

Not Everything Was in My Father’s Will

My father left me a CD with noth­ing in it and a record of all his closed accounts. He left me a hole in which to deposit old birds, the bust of the uncle he hat­ed, old news­pa­per clip­pings of ads for cloth­ing lines he was sell­ing, the tran­sis­tor radio –more

Like Day and Night

By day, the river’s for fishing.
Or canoeing.
Or swimming.
No bod­ies bloat up to the surface.

But by night,
it’s a float­ing graveyard.
A car­cass bobs against the banks.
An old man and his dog come across it
and call the cops.

Whole fam­i­lies come –more

Months after the cel­e­bra­tions of life, my wife invit­ed a man to the house for lunch. I toast­ed four slices of wheat bread and unwrapped two slices of cheese from their plas­tic slips. He and I spoke about the absence of snow. I found his views exhaust­ing. –more

The Tigers

Make sure the tigers’ blind­folds are on at all times. They will eat you, and each oth­er, on sight. The only way our tigers can coex­ist is for them to be unaware of one anoth­er. If one of their blind­folds falls off, shoot that tiger imme­di­ate­ly. –more

Caroline drank her morn­ing cof­fee, its dark­ness fill­ing her mouth, coat­ing her teeth, tongue, palate, fill­ing for an instant, burn­ing, clos­ing off for an instant, clos­ing every­thing off. Anton let out a meow like a knife slice to the flesh. He was –more

Rudy and I talk on the phone late at night, often from one or two until dawn. He lives in New Orleans and I live in Wisconsin. Both of us have returned to our home states after decades away in New York, Los Angeles, and Berlin.

When I was still liv­ing –more

The Hearth (Montenegro)

The fuck­ing of the sun had always irri­tat­ed and wound­ed Bab. It was uncouth and seemed to her to be as unholy as the fuck­ing of God, Jesus and even worse, the moth­er. The worst her father had ever cursed was the fuck­ing of the goat.

Our house guest –more

It was not snow but pure ash
in the after­white of the sun­y­olk of the Tsar Bomba.
The peo­ple were gone, fast and deleted.
I walked in the supreme quiet.
The screams were inhaled by the amanhecer.
The trou­bles were sim­pli­fied –more

My moth­er and I sit at oppo­site ends of her kitchen table. I drove up from Memphis this morn­ing, at the urg­ing of my two sis­ters, who say they’re get­ting wor­ried. They want me to call after­wards, get my impres­sions. My moth­er and I are wear­ing face­masks. –more

Then he stopped want­i­ng sex. Then he stopped talk­ing much at all. At his worst he’d pace through rooms and the air would adhere and fol­low him and all the time you could feel all these thoughts going through his head—these images of syphilis and –more

One albi­no bug crawl­ing on a piece of moss.
Long antennae.
Simple legs.
It jumps, fly­ing down onto a piece of pine.
Walking across sand and grav­el. Crawls across a stick.
A dead albi­no moth –more

I fold the paper, wait­ing at the din­er. Sip my water, check my phone for the time. The guy is late: my date, who I met online. I look out the win­dow: the moon like clumps.

The paper has a pic­ture of a guy want­ed for killing some­one in the trop­ics. –more

Scream as loud­ly as you can at ran­dom times, day or night, with­out shame or apology.

Sing the music in your head with­out regard to melody or rhythm. Performing out­side announces your pres­ence and asserts your identity.

Shout “Hi, neigh­bor!” –more

A cou­ple of tall, healthy, pros­per­ous, fra­grant young Canadians, one from Winnipeg, the oth­er from Saskatoon, in my liv­ing room tonight defend­ing the idea of the week­end and their God-giv­en right to play a lit­tle club music on Friday night.

I calm­ly –more

The Witching Hour

The knock on the door came short­ly after 3. Wooden par­ti­cle board mak­ing the light rap resound, of course at that hour espe­cial­ly. In the days pri­or there had been some con­cern an illic­it arrange­ment on that side of Jakarta might not be met with a –more

Somewhat com­plex grumpiness
on the precipice of a beau­ti­ful world
in a lov­ing, mag­i­cal universe
sym­bi­ot­ic with virus­es and bacteria
Persistent, intru­sive thoughts
Chemical vir­tu­al realities
Diatribing in pub­lic
–more

The back­yard gar­den is a fenced-in pool of murky black Jell‑O that sucks and belch­es up Heather’s feet as she col­lects its mon­strous and mishap­pen pro­duce into wick­er baskets—onions the size of bowl­ing balls, car­rots bent at right angles, apples –more

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