MEASUREMENTS

How great must a shock be to determine X number of years? We go to therapists to answer such questions. To be told: shock of nth degree yields so many years. Powers on which to

My alcoholic uncle, Bill, was pacing back and forth across the five by five foot living room, asking where his beer was. His beer was wearing a new koozie that had a hood and zipped up like a real sweatshirt.

As teenagers, my friends and I spent Friday nights driving backroads, throwing soda cans at street signs. The wind would be cold, the music would be loud, and sometimes, a can would bounce back and

Reverse Invocation 
 

To the god of thresholds: for is it not
tradition to call upon a deity

with a voice crackling like the lull
of aged leaves, of a petal shifted

by wind. To the

dogged night

the moon is black

or green i go

a little nuts

flaying flowers

from the brocade

i cord the stems

& swallow the steak

tenderloin

I started reading My Struggle in the spring of 2014. I didn’t know what I was getting into, but I was excited about the prospect of being totally immersed in someone else’s world, and I was curious as

Hollowing in Three Parts

1

Although it’s the last day of September and the talons of winter have taken hold and although between the two of you you’ve lost sixty-five pounds in the

Larry didn’t try to talk to me, but whenever the silence got too thick, he would squeeze my knee or knead my shoulder. I was pretty fucked up on cold medicine, and it felt like he was grabbing a hold of my bones.

It starts like this: Hirsch leans over the sandwich board at the P&S Lunch just after the rush and feels faint.  A little touch of the queezywheezies, says Pinskey. Lie down for a little, says

America

The radio is on a pledge drive

and living in America

is starting to feel like staying 

in the bad hotel.

Nothing to hear but selling

or silence. I’m thinking of the

June 1, 1944 –  Squadron party. Real whiskey, but didn’t get too hi – just happy. Met a W.A.F. (Women Air Force) & we talked English history.

Ivan told me that the minute you step off the plane in America they hand you money. I keep waiting for someone to hand me money. No one has handed me money.

Ja

I keep writing about orgasms as crying & then I think about that.
I spent too much money on baby pink earrings & ginger
because the men in my life believe me & still starch their

I’m at Guitar Center to buy a Fender. I run through the metal heads doing their best Guitar Hero impressions to the only white Telecaster hanging on the wall.

Eva Hagberg Fisher's forthcoming book (out next week) How To Be Loved figuratively fell in my lap. I was at coffee with a friend, saying I needed a new book to read, but I needed that book to be about recovery because I just needed to be heard and understood, and lo and behold, my inbox pinged.

A Godly woman has to make a living, after all.

I tried to look / like I was looking for someone above...

My friend told me, it’s just about you needing control. I did not respond when she said this. Considering nothing is just about anything.

"We argue about whether we should be more frightened" and "I tried to lose myself once"

I took a ferry there with Babas—I was calling her Babas—she was calling me Clod I think.

That this was the case for him. 

He writes a bad poem and it’s a love poem and it’s for her and he sits down on the floor and then he stands up and goes into the kitchen and opens the refrigerator door and sees that there’s an apple in the bottom drawer.

He watched the door, and saw that it wanted to open.

Today I bought blue yarn and brand-new silver nails...

She had grown up and now lived in a cold climate that encouraged looking down.

Yoda sat atop the wreckage of his escape pod, still creaking from skidding into the murky swamp hours prior