“How ‘bout it, Ronnie. Throw something Butch can hit. Try over the plate for once.”

​I knew a man, older, who was afraid to cry.

I was 11 and my buddy, Dennis, and I
kept hounding Coach Phillips for some chew

And by the third inning, it’s really, truly, shittily finished. “They gave us about twenty minutes of thinking we were in it,” Tim says. “Twenty minutes.”

Jenny Irish and I sat down to discuss her stunning debut, Common Ancestor, with Black Lawrence Press. Her prose poem, "A Brief History of Motivations" was published on our site in

He blew smoke from a loaned cigarette back into my hair, bar rag still in his back pocket from the shift that ended two hours ago. He didn’t understand why I didn’t want him to come over. “Surrender to the stuff, baby.” 

Even if it is addressed to you, this is a letter for me. If it were truly a letter for you, it would be written in sound, in the words that lilt on your tongue, rise a tempest in your rage,

The "UTOPIA STUDY" series is a form of experimental architectural photography that focuses on modern architecture in a number of American cities. Buildings and details within them are transformed into

I could have no path, no idea of what I should be or how I should live. I could skate through neighborhoods, where I wouldn’t find a Mormon church or anyone who knew I had strayed from the path I was raised to follow

My father inhales smoke from a lone Marlboro,
            shadowed against a sun colored like dead autumn leaves.
He gently cradles the barrel of tobacco between his pointer
            &

The funeral is over, Eliza is back at work, and she has eaten dinner at home three times now, once alone, even.

A Queer Translates Rilke

I long to know his self-described “epic head”
with my eyes closed. But for now, his torso
radiates from my screen like a delirious
lighthouse, like it is recharging my

Patience is one virtue that me and Wayne both got in spades.

The king’s first wife went crazy and no longer obeyed him, so he sent her away.

Since You Left I Have Spent My Days Staring Blankly at the Beer Sign in the Bar From the Time it Opens Until Closing Time

Neon

Neoff

Boredom

I walked through the senior hallway, heart beating fast. The boys’ stares burned into my skin as they whispered things to each other.

“Mrs. Bolthuis wants you to help her with something. Ride over there and see what she wants. Homework can wait for once.”

In my head, dating women was a body competition.

Color Study, or Ode to Discomfort

It was never safe for us—
always beneath the eye is blood;
and maybe a ferocious tongue
called

Because let’s face it, boiled tea does not meet my privileged standards for heat. 

“If you have to say you’re fine, you’re probably not,” the crow replied.

I remember being young and small and barefoot on the concrete floor: look closely and see how the cicada shells vibrate as the Texas Hill Country winds sift in.

Lenore was at the cusp. I’m cusping, Percy, she rasped. Percy was unsure what to do about it. Press forward? Hang back?

In jazz, woodshedding refers to the shed you sequester yourself in, as a young musician learning the craft, a private space to develop your own style, away from prying eyes or critical ears.