You’re supposed to thank the fumes. To be grateful for the toxic patch on the rail track. For the craquelure in the asphalt, seeping green— it reroutes you, proffers with each commute a forced adventure. Who’s to say … Continued
My whole life I was a pretty girl until one day I woke up with this hole in my face. The hole keeps growing. It’s not a surreal hole, there’s no going into it; the only thing that … Continued
I have lush grass in my mouth come sit, come mess with my unplumbed sum, let your finger at leisure destroy my mute, my hermetically sealed little baggie of spit. I treasure whatever will stay in the room: … Continued
Growing up, my mother called it nuni. My father called it nunus, pronouncing it new-newshh. It was the shh sound that I never liked about that one, like my stream hitting the toilet bowl. My grandmother never called … Continued
1. Daddy In his last photos he looked unhappy cutting the thick dry ham For Thanksgiving he sat alone eating in the snow under the crow’s irritating call He should have posed for another picture on another day Instead he … Continued
The first invitation led to the roulette invasion. These words echo in nightmare after nightmare. Luckily, the invasion was a success. Success—as is well known—does not preclude the ransacking of sleep. The Hired Chair accepted the invitation and … Continued
I close the shutters, leave a wink of light to keep from burning down my paper house. The seams are creased. I move about in my tattered plight slowly. Elbow on the table, skin puckered makes a kissing … Continued
It’s my daughter’s tenth birthday, and Montpellier the rattlesnake is telling her to kill me again. This is what she screams from the living room as I prepare her favorite blueberry pancakes for lunch. She is trying to … Continued
Mike Ashley’s birthday was on April 20th, the same day as Hitler’s and Columbine and obviously four-twenty, which you observed like a national holiday. Her mother’s name was Marilyn and her family lived on Marilyn Place. Ashley was a … Continued
He isn’t giving me any answers. His book of scripture is open on the floor. If I lean in close, with my lips next to his ear, He whispers back verse after verse. It’s no use … Continued
my lingerie I’d accidentally sent her a photo of myself in the new black cling-wrap meant for my lover my thumbs go loose after 2 a.m. … Continued
We live underground. More or less all the time. We eat roots, berries, tubers and insects. Occasionally rodents. Naked mole rats if we’re lucky enough to find a colony. Then we party. We even cook them if … Continued
Ivan Medvedich was washing his silvery mustache after eating a slice of dark bread with honey when a whistle cut through the air, deepened in frequency, and sank into an explosion that shook … Continued
The distance from one person to the next was equal to the length of a Bridge. There. Right at the edge of it Forty-four full miles from the heart of the house to where the road hit … Continued
The woman has a Salt Lake stormcloud for a hairdo. She yells from her wheelchair like a man whose prayers have gone unanswered for years. There’s no one else in the hallway. The flesh of her neck … Continued
You are on the line the ref’s whistle opens a cloud opens your stomach its shrill is something you swallow a silence opens like a door and on the other side are one thousand closed mouths … Continued
Some people never stop talking, and that was, I am certain, without any doubt, the main problem with Bubba. I am certain of it. Every morning ‘round nine a.m. he came into Mrs. Holtin’s Supermarket and sat … Continued
Even as I depress the shutter of my iPhone, my heart longs for the more formal photographs of the past. My family albums begin with a leather volume, labeled ALBUM 1—RUSSIA. The album itself is aged—its … Continued
I. The Void When the number zero had not been invented, when quantities themselves were represented by lines or by pebbles arranged in patterns like those found on dice or dominoes. . .when the composition of matter … Continued
Mr. Fulger called when he wanted to see her and she obliged. For a while it was all very matter-of-fact, like a visit to the library, the reasons for going unequivocal. Regret rarely played a … Continued