The Spring Cricket’s Discourse on Critics
Everybody’s got a song they’ve gotta sing. So they say. So they think. Everybody’s got a pair of fat thighs they believe they can just crush together & crank out the golden tunes, ye olde...
View ArticleCathedral
Before the war we bury the windows Before we bury the windows we take them down The tallest of us altar boys lifts a purple blade from a frozen robe & holds it with both hands before handing it...
View ArticleWunderlich
The name means “odd.” The name means “queer.” It can denote an “odd fish.” It suggests a “queer chap.” Sometimes it means “capricious.” It can also mean “peevish.” It’s a synonym for “singular.”...
View ArticleMy List of True Facts
I am 43 and I just drove to CVS at 9:30 p.m. on a Sunday to buy a store-brand pregnancy test two sticks in a box rung up by a clerk who looked like the human embodiment of a Ken doll with his coiffed...
View ArticleTotally Under the Water
He knew, he said, he was dying when for two straight weeks he dreamed of trying to switch on a swing-arm lamp that wouldn’t switch on. In baths I’ve never gone—as they do in the movies, to...
View ArticleThe Sad Side of Spring
Next to the ocean I know I am dying Early this morning The adjoining wall of our dreams Collapsed When I drive through A forest I don’t stop Come back to the city Smeared and nothing Gets it off I...
View ArticleCocaine and Gold
I never wanted to be this far Into the business of heaven Chasing my father hunting His soul in the corn and confusion of this harvest...
View ArticleNamed Storm
Each phase of my childhood was marked by the death of another child, but my parents didn’t worry much, and I spent summer afternoons nowhere to be found. It was the most useful thing I’d taught...
View ArticleSestina Gratitude
Thank you in gold particle. Thank you in wave. Thank you any zygote worth its salt. Bend down to be capacitated. Bend down to take your crown. Thank you parting membrane. Thank you for the crown that...
View ArticleNovel in Progress
It’s not not knowing how the end ends That turns the page it’s how you want someone To join you, the doves sun-dazzled in streets Act like lonely stones just some of the...
View ArticleThe Country of Lone Wolves
For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack. —Rudyard Kipling There is always a wolf in the night of the world in the...
View ArticleCasting Call
Hospital patient to die on-screen. Must be able to stay dead for money. Must stay dead for several takes. Must not flinch when the protagonist’s tears make a lake of your mouth. Must not swallow....
View ArticleTrilogy of Doubt
What form do you ask for pointing at me with your scorn- raised brow you clutch your coxcomb velvet robe with your left hand ringed married to God in cuffed surplice and say: so shall you burn...
View ArticleTL;DR
The room you spend the most time in is the focus. For a week, live with as many straight lines as you can find. Bring in other objects and furniture. Wear a square hat if you have one—and stripes on...
View ArticleBlood and Soil
Let me lift my shirt for you. Let me bear my throat. One dollar! One dollar! Cut as deep as you like! One dollar! The Bloodless Boy Wonder! Money back if he bleeds! I have no blood. No soil. I have...
View ArticleHoled Up
Finally, the mint is up. My small ambit of yard. Monitoring its progress. The azalea has a few tightly furled pinks like napkins twisted in a lap anxiously below the dinner table. As a child, I...
View ArticleSnow Theory
I haven’t killed a thing since 2006 The darkness out there, wet as a newborn I dog-eared the book & immediately thought of masturbation How else do we return to ourselves but to fold The page so...
View ArticleThe Beach
At night, the dead lovers of the living wade out of the sea and build small fires along the break. They shed their heavy coats, empty their pockets of debris. They know they have lost something—but...
View ArticleCheckpoint
I crossed a border, I crossed a line, I crossed a threshold, I crossed a divide, I forded the strait between nowhere and wish, I shifted my body’s weight in the direction of the sun, I was born in a...
View ArticleOne Thing
1 I had a thing about sensation. It was small, dedicated, working its way in to me. I was reminded of a bee burrowing into the smooth cone of a flower, how it wags its bottom in the air— funny. 2 I...
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