Tennis balls were always disgusting. That creep-crawly not-green not-quite-yellow felt that made my teeth grind and my spine twitch, always wet with dog slobber. And it never lost that toxic new car

Gail is the name of the person telling this story. She thinks of herself as Gail instead of I.

Loretta Lynn
Coal Miner’s Daughter
11 songs, 29 minutes
1970

The place is too small, but we don’t care. I don’t care because I’ve always liked small spaces (if I were an animal, I’d be one with

I sometimes wish we were pufferfish. There are the general perks of being a marine creature: silky filament gills that gulp oxygen from water, flippers to whirl through the waves, eyes that open in

PROEMNAL

1.

On’s on.

Storm in summer so awed.

Storm in summer so the awning.

Gum rubber space slowing
to show me it’s one big skin
sweating and leaking into
all over me.

I don’t

This diner has been here since 1949 but I am sure that no one has ever looked as beautiful as you do sitting on these red vinyl seats. 

I painted my lips and fingers red the first time I was unfaithful. It was in college, with a girl with sharp orange hair who had a smile that said come. I never really liked her--she was arrogant and

THE LOOKOUT

A person looks out onto the ocean. The water does not look like it is moving. Is it a real ocean? How are we to decide? There is something small and very far away. The person cannot

When Rose leaves, she hands me a lamp and says, “I’m afraid it will break in the move.” She tosses a bag of Twizzlers into her Corolla. The backseat is piled with thrift store dresses and Doc Martens.

She focuses on efficient point accumulation: jam, 12 points.

The cage was located in the back and, technically speaking, was a separate store: enclosed by chain-link fences, it housed rows of metal shelves on which were stockpiled stacks of used books. The

1.

Maybe I’m an idiot, but those waves are
talking to me. They fall apart on the beach
then recoil, and the phytoplankton glow in
their recession. That’s where I think what
they’re saying is.

Skincare for Trees

Take care of your skin she says, over the dinner table,
tracing lines on the table with thin long fingernails,                                                                 

FARMHAND LONGS FOR LOVE FROM ABOVE

Thought regaling twilight with porch-grown ukulele melodies would suffice to lure somefowl over but since experience

Gentian Violet

For years I lied
          to everyone
                  said gentian was related
                                             to violet
                  I don’t know why

It was a Sunday morning in Delta, Mississippi when the body of the missing Negro giant washed up on the bank of the river. First news of the creature’s arrival was brought to the town by a local fisherman...

I turned over in bed and felt something weird. I put my hand behind my head and felt it was the pillow. I sat up and looked at the pillow. It was wet, pinkish-red. I said holy shit a few times, ran my

I slept with Sam in my bed when he was still a puppy, even though this is supposed to be a bad way to train a dog. He woke me up sometimes in those early months when he was never tired and always

MORNING

As a child I was taught
the small gathering of matter:

in the garage of summer,
a shelf of conch shells

flat yellow saddle oysters layered in jars,
small change purses of cicada

Andy Carr is stocking shelves at his local Value King supermarket when a forty-year-old woman taps him on the shoulder and starts yelling in his face. By the woman’s word the store is out of stock of

But every time I listen to Brothers, I can hear her voice.

As I headed north, to your border, darkness fell, and I could see only the two cones of light extending from the car’s headlamps. The road itself had no markings. It stretched into the black, a

not the man

you should have fucked
the forest, not the man

the ravine holds secrets
not him

not him
secrets hold the ravine

not the man, the forest
you should have fucked

easy come,