New World Writing Quarterly

Broken Cakes

Autumn is my bur­den. My morn­ings come mid-after­noon. I crawl out of bed by the light between the pur­ple vel­vet cur­tains from my failed sec­ond-mar­riage bed­room. I take a swig of vod­ka to wet my cracked lips, light a cig­a­rette on the fumes of my next –more

I couldn’t real­ly say why I hadn’t killed the bull. Not right away, when every­one kept ask­ing. I struck at it sev­er­al times in the exact spot I should, but I could not sink the blade. I couldn’t say to my friends inside the vehi­cle what had hap­pened, –more

Before the Desert

 
Before the desert, I shook trees for
you, beat bush­es, trav­eled far and wide, high
and low, both inside and out through the course
of unfor­tu­nate con­se­quences, the
def­i­n­i­tion of matu­ri­ty that
I final­ly rec­og­nize –more

Far above: a jet descends. As if pulled by an invis­i­ble hand behind a mag­net­ic game board.

Gods play with car and boat and plane-shaped pawns from the oth­er side.

Throw the die, and tokens scoot along. Go to jail or plum­met down to hell.

Twin engines –more

I wake and search for my phone beneath my pil­low where I store it night­ly. Glare from the win­dow cov­ers the screen. I drop under the sheets, blan­ket, and duvet. I’m held as if embraced, but it’s only my hair that smells like skin and cotton.

My –more

When we were with­in an hour of the stu­pa, Thurston final­ly showed me the pho­to of it.  We’d stopped so he could take a nitro­glyc­erin tablet from the bot­tle he’d bought in India.  He looked toward the top of the moun­tain and smiled despite –more

Oprah will die! Oprah will die! Oprah will die! you think as you pump gas at Gas on the Go on Thanksgiving Day. You mean to send her no bad kar­ma, of course. It’s mere­ly a fact. Still, it seems more shock­ing than oth­er deaths. Oprah will die! Oprah –more

Gray Cats

Juniper bush­es out­side a green house. Matchbox cars in the sand, the trace of their tracks lead­ing away from me. These are the first things I remem­ber. The dog’s neck, the swell of ticks under her collar–their white bal­loon bod­ies. I wait on the play­ground –more

The Ship With Three Decks

“But the old sailor had brought along the bar­rel con­tain­ing the water of long life, in which he immersed the youth’s body, only to see him jump right back out as sound as ever and so hand­some that the king’s daugh­ter threw her arms around his –more

Words string out like clothes­line along each page as Ellen reads in the yard. Thoughts sweep in like tides as she turns each page. She has ques­tions, and they have led her out­side into the ear­ly evening sun.

The drugs in the draw­er. The dirty sock in –more

The radio was tuned to the local NPR sta­tion so they didn’t have to talk. Tara was glad because each time she thought of some­thing to say, it began with, “Had I known,” and Pete already explained that if he’d told her he was tak­ing her to his –more

Dear Dr. Hanson, Nurse Cache and Lisa:

I just want­ed to write this note thank­ing you all for work­ing these many years to keep me upright and nom­i­nal­ly func­tion­al. Very kind of you all, and one of my few fond mem­o­ries of Penurburg, along with the –more

Elise awoke think­ing about light­hous­es and safe har­bors, or light­hous­es not indi­cat­ing safe har­bors. It must have come from a poem. Louise Glück? She tried to recall the words and stopped when she real­ized she was lying in a bed­room she hadn’t seen –more

1

Death by cop is a more com­mon form of attempt­ed sui­cide than I would have guessed before I became a crime reporter. Among the poor, the des­per­ate, the heart-crushed, the men­tal­ly ill, and the abject­ly lost it is up there with bridge jump­ing –more

for Mike Madonick

On the rec­om­men­da­tion of a col­league of mine, who says my work lacks vari­ety, I am going to attempt to describe, of all things, a jar of may­on­naise. In his opin­ion a more var­ied sto­ry will arise from this exer­cise. I have my doubts, –more

Brown Sparrow was asleep in a lin­den tree when the first sui­cide bomber blew up. The two fol­low­ing implo­sions shook her body. She didn’t pause to breathe but left the lin­den tree and flew along the Canal de St. Denis, past the hon­ey locusts, –more

Through the heavy rain hit­ting my win­dow ledge, we see her bal­ance on the tightrope, her arms row­ing in the air. She would give her life for her art, we say to each oth­er. This per­for­mance is the real thing, says a man with a long mus­tache like –more

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