New World Writing Quarterly

Dermaflash Luxe Anti-Aging Sonic Dermaplaning Exfoliation Tool, in Pop Pink

The ad in the mag­a­zine at the eye doctor’s office says the peach fuzz on my face must be mowed, that these tee­ny-tiny hairs obscure my true beau­ty. –more

Tonight, in the mer­lot-stained cottage,
we hurl crumbs at the wildfowls
from cran­ber­ry-bruised windows—
we must be timely.
Candied apples, cream cheese, pump­kin butter—
we store pies in ceram­ic –more

Legacy

It was rain­ing when­ev­er my grand­par­ents vis­it­ed my great-grand­fa­ther. Shrubs bloomed pink, white and pur­ple. Everything glis­tened, and the mag­ic of the cut glass door­knob which felt too sharp for my hand opened into –more

This Moment
for the Piperno family

1. Blessed Is.

There is no future with­out memory.
There is no future with­out feeling
ful­ly the moment in which we live.
At bad news we bless the One True Judge.
At good news we bless the One –more

StellaSue hat­ed the name her mama assigned her and then the one her hus­band gave her not long before he gave her bruis­es and three babies she didn’t nec­es­sar­i­ly ask for in such quick suc­ces­sion that she nick­named her­self “The Chute.”

“That’s –more

Postcard
             Radnoti’s Coat

Miklos, the weath­er is here and your postcards.
The ink, soaked from the slow melt of your body,
has run from black to watery blue, and I’m thinking
of your trench coat, that if bul­lets were –more

It hap­pened in a sprawl­ing lab­o­ra­to­ry in south­ern Italy. It hap­pened in a dingy vet’s office next to a Domino’s.

Oliver slept in the front seat, curled up in his fuzzy blan­ket like a black silken hand­ker­chief tucked in –more

The Prodigy Maker

The man with no eyes and ears who tunes pianos tap-tap-taps at our door at the creaky-crack of dawn and plunks his satchel of tools down next to the spinet. His bul­bous nose glis­tens like a shim­mer­ing pond. His breath, like scram­bled –more

The girl showed up every day that spring. Black pony­tail under a back­wards black cap, car­go cut-offs to her shins, worn-out com­bat boots she swapped for Vans yanked out of an over­stuffed back­pack. Her board was old and beat to shit, but she was obvi­ous­ly –more

At first, the babysit­ter did not under­stand what the chil­dren were attempt­ing to tell her. That a man had emerged from the barn. That he had appar­ent­ly been liv­ing in the barn. That he had gone into the woods, and, not long –more

Act Now

I should have been a dolphin,
seems fair.
I should have been a loveseat,
passed from moth­er to daugh­ter to son
then chopped into kindling
to keep the tin­der com­pa­ny as it burns.
Fire where there’s father
–more

Status Report

Writing a poem feels
dan­ger­ous
again. We need to

be care­ful when
choos­ing
our words and then

we need to say them.

~

Love Song

You can see how Ptolemy
mis­un­der­stood the –more

What first gave us the idea is that Gwen was a lead in the school play, and her char­ac­ter would only love men named Ernest. So we decid­ed that for the next cal­en­dar year, Gwen would only date Alexanders (Alex count­ed), and –more

In the storm of Goodman’s life, he is always a minute from find­ing shel­ter, a tin roof, a striped awning, hell, even a tree. His life has always been a storm, all 63 years, but now with Hannah gone, he feels the bite of wind every­where he looks.

–more

People in ele­va­tors are anx­ious. This is part­ly because peo­ple in ele­va­tors are going some­where, and the ele­va­tors are not that some­where. But it is also because peo­ple in ele­va­tors are often alone in these ele­va­tors with strangers. Alone with strangers –more

Jim

When Jim plays the clar­inet, his tor­so lengthens,
his fin­gers sure on the tone holes,
on the keys. His lips warm on the reed,

he sways in a dance like the dance
I once saw on an Attic amphora,
the son of Aphrodite water­ing his

mother’s gar­den, water –more

So my big secret isn’t that I date the occa­sion­al sug­ar dad­dy or two or I go commando—all the time—the secret is I start­ed to go to church. I go not because I’ve found reli­gion, but because I have some girl crush­es. –more

Enterprise, Alabama, 1978:

The sales­man behind the glass counter hand­ed my dad a hand­writ­ten receipt and a few dol­lars, then looked down at me. “Well kid­do,” he said, “in a cou­ple of years you’ll fit into a grown-up –more

Unable to Sleep

For sev­er­al nights now he had believed him­self unable to sleep. Each morn­ing he would rise remem­ber­ing hav­ing spent the pre­vi­ous eight hours star­ing at the ceil­ing. It was unbear­able. And yet when he men­tioned –more

Last night, my brother’s heart stopped beat­ing. My broth­er will be dead for the rest of my life. He will be dead for­ev­er. I shuf­fle up the dri­ve, stop and kick the camel­lias that lit­ter the road. I kneel to pick up the blos­soms –more