New World Writing Quarterly

Once, in May, a trac­tor near where the teacher lived in Western New York van­ished beneath the earth when a farmer drove too ear­ly into the onion fields. The teacher, a month from fin­ish­ing his first year of instruct­ing teenagers, –more

This life splits you apart like a for­tune cook­ie. Bear with me while I have this Proustian moment the year I was twelve and live on Martha Avenue with a fire down the street. Fire trucks and fire men.

The house was once a small lend­ing –more

My friends and I are talk­ing about what comes after we die. Nothing about souls or the after­life – the only one who believes in that stuff is Cassie, and we all know that’s her Pisces moon talk­ing – but we are con­cerned about our bod­ies. Burial, –more

Avoid sen­tence fragments. 

My school days are not frag­ments, they are one big blur. The too-early–in-the-morning garbage trucks that sound like dying whales.  My mother’s bowls of healthy, taste­less oat­meal.  Which –more

For a while, deploy­ments were fif­teen months long instead of twelve. Some guys went a lit­tle bit nuts. A lot of the time, it hap­pened around month thir­teen or four­teen. They made it through a whole year of chaos and dan­ger –more

Two philoso­phers walk into a bar. They wear robes, maybe some Grecian tex­tile that’s musty from long-term entomb­ment or maybe some clear­ance sheets from Bed Bath and Beyond.

“I’ll have a G & T,” the first philoso­pher –more

What If?

What if what you thought you saw
Had not even occurred?
As though there was a mag­ic act—
Some sleight of hand at work—
To deem you an accomplice,
But you nev­er remote­ly knew
Why the plan was devised for you.

What if they took you on a ride
In –more

Judging by the voice the girl might have been ear­ly twen­ties, per­haps still in her teens. She was com­ing in loud and clear from out front. Greg lived one off the front of his block. The place oppo­site had to be ful­ly forty metres away.

–more

RESISTANCE

A paper cut from the map was inoculation

All night the slick machine of the river
pol­ished shad and Frances the geographer
noticed the earth start­ing to slope down
to oxbows now eye­brows and resorts

We ran a slight fever to adapt

We passed through –more

Head in the Sky

My moth­er named the pines, each pine that came to mind. Pitch and short­leaf. White and loblol­ly. Spruce, red, table mountain.

Our bea­gle came back after weeks away. It was­n’t the first time she’d run off. She arrived on our –more

Tracks

You’re the way­ward one, aren’t you, said the teacher. I was sit­ting on my yoga mat, dis­tract­ed by a mag­a­zine. I think every­one in this room is offer­ing you respect, I said to her. I meant to give it. In a Little Free Library –more

I am suf­fer­ing from post-trau­mat­ic sink­hole syndrome.

I was awak­ened at 3:30 am last Thursday.

My broth­er said that my Audi 2013 was under water—in a sink­hole, where I had parked, in front of our house.

We went outside.

I was –more

there is a house on fire

there is a house on fire

don’t wor­ry,
it is not your house

it is not
your house

a beau­ti­ful house
a beau­ti­ful fire

a beau­ti­ful house
and a beau­ti­ful fire

a beau­ti­ful house on fire

so beau­ti­ful

look

keep look­ing

it is beau­ti­ful, isn’t it?

so beau­ti­ful

and –more

Monumento a Velázquez

Aniceto Marinas (stat­ue) Vicente Lampérez (pedestal), 1899

The celebri­ty fell in love with the Prado Museum. His spir­its had soared when he spot­ted the first ‘museo’ sign. He’d been ready for it: Rubens, The Three Graces, El –more

1. The Really Big Heart

Me and Kyoko dri­ve to Rochester and check into a hotel behind a din­er. Dangling above the bath­tub we find a human heart the size of a per­son. Slick with a shim­mer­ing, oily liq­uid, and beat­ing with an irreg­u­lar, stac­ca­to rhythm, the heart con­nects to –more

1. 77‑Y.O’s New [Perhaps Clichéd] Organizing Principle

Understanding
Life’s entropy
State
     After
Making trek
Higher up into
Age’s
      Himalayas
Where near air gets
–more

As a defen­sive mea­sure, Cullen had taped garbage bags to his win­dows. Black ones. Double lay­ered. He’d been awake since Tuesday. Hadn’t left the house since Friday.

He told me all this in a calm voice. Maybe a lit­tle amused –more

After the Plague

Dandelions rock­et­ed up
from side­walk cracks,
joy­ous, unrestrained,
seeds of sun­light in
fields of quiet.

And the fish multiplied
expo­nen­tial­ly, like
God promised in some
irra­tional book
of ancient fiction.

~

Encouragement

A mes­sage for the horse-faced boys and girls
–more

I missed the bus to Tapachula by 15 min­utes. There wouldn’t be anoth­er until the fol­low­ing morn­ing, the robot­ic woman at the tick­et counter told me. I was try­ing to cross before dark, remem­ber­ing the fright­en­ing scene at –more

I was just off my valet shift, 3 a.m., and I’d gone to a pan­cake house. This was in L.A., forty years ago. An old man land­ed in my booth, ka-thud.

He was one of the most famous movie actors of all time.

I didn’t –more