Dog Story
Arnie makes his careful way up the walk at a moonless two am on memory and a sliver of lamplight through closed curtains. Laura left the lights on again, every one except the porch light. Arnie goes through the house … Continued
The Tides
Windmills
He’s lying there looking up at the ceiling, yellow and peeling, and the low thrumming noise is growing. Maybe the town is just hushed at night so that he can hear the irregular murmur in his head. Isn’t there a … Continued
Wider
I’m a scarecrow in the middle of the endless field of my wife’s beautiful faces. I want to enjoy the landscape of her but two crows are arguing on my shoulders. One has my mother’s voice. The other speaks in … Continued
Massive Efforts
You’ve arrived, dog, at the Museum of Fine Arts, packed in a foam-padded wooden crate, and now, gingerly broken out, placed at the show’s main gate tight-lipped. Greeter, first contact, shouldn’t visitors hear that during your stint as number one … Continued
Help Wanted
It’s dark as I bite my nails past the skin in the drive-thru lane at McDonald’s. I can’t remember how I got here. I barely remember leaving the house. Reluctantly, swiftly, without changing out of the new pajamas that the … Continued
Canal
After the photograph Manatee Drive 02 by Isabella Hayeur, 2011 No one who has ever seen a body of water has not imagined drowning. Surface divides my eye and my breath holds me. The underskin of the canal grows … Continued
Country: A Mix Tape
We didn’t spend enough time with any of our friends who are dead when they were alive, we never are good enough and we never can be the old declaration god is love. —Barry Hannah Before he used the … Continued
The Tides
When I think of Virginia Woolf, the picture that springs to mind is a woman in a large dress, wading slowly into a river, her pockets laden with stones so that she will be sure never to surface again. … Continued
Friday Night Lights
Upstairs the child rattles her crib against the wall. I trim my nails and think about the future. Some rockabilly song plays on the radio, the voice of someone announcing a football game coming down the road. Now that I’m … Continued