to Mrs. Burrell
When Ms. Griffin was fired, my mother said
it was because she was too gay, too flamboyant
for our small charter school. I mourned her
ombre dreadlocks and her laugh that swept
Nights shipwrecked / in nameless wanting
The city a floating glass
garden / to be lost in
Banished from the blinked-out streets / we put
our dollar-store faith / in the claw machine
wager
Now, you book an appointment on a whim. But it’s not a whim. You’ve been thinking about this for a while.
All around him the congregation erupted. Tears of rapture. Hugs of friendship. Compassionate embraces. Passionate kisses. Erotic caresses.
Charlie Utter (Dayton Callie) and John Anderson; A.W. Merrick (Jeffrey Jones) and Wynonna; Whitney Ellsworth (Jim Beaver) and Trace Atkins; General Samuel Fields (Franklin Ajaye) and Kenny Chesney; Tom Nuttall (Leon Rippy) and Aaron Tippin
Morning smells like horseradish,
dogshit. The squat toilet in my uncle’s house:
too cramped to hold
a breathing thing. My cousin, barely older
than three, calls me “姐姐, 姐姐,” as she
Are you in my head? Do you know what goes on up here? Do you know what’s preceded all that goes on up here?
Like the other day, when we got into a fight about who was the luckier between the two of us to have found the other.
For Caite’s Sweet 16 we get a couple rooms at the Motel 6 on Cerrillos, not the one downtown with the outdoor pool, the one on the southside between the strip club and the mall, and everyone can pay
Collective Soul have always sucked, but Everclear was once the only band in the world.
On the contrary: I wanted people to see my spectacle. I wanted them to never forget it. Z had wondered: what if the joy of experiment dies with joy itself? If the relationship ends, what if we’re done with it forever?
His subconscious deemed them too short, or not steep enough, or their grass was flecked with yellow and brown. He had succeeded in agitating his appetite and wondered what he would have for dinner.
People hung around outside of convenience stores with their hands over their mouths blowing smoke. Stereos played loud Christmas music.
When I was 22, my mother was excited for the first day at my new job, but not so much that she couldn’t wait to tell me about the demon that had attacked her in the night.
Priorities.
They held
Exchanging one anya-nyelv, mother-tongue, for another is like
nibbling salted peanuts at the sticky bar top,
unplanned but eventual for a bilingual migrant.
The other mother-
nyelv tongue is
Hank sucked what was left of his cigarette back in one pull and flicked it into the alley. The hot light of the ember cartwheeled through the air before disappearing into the snow.
Sometimes I stop talking to my boyfriend for no reason.
Because of its hardiness and tendency to escape cultivation, these non-native wisterias are considered invasive species in many parts of the United States, especially the Southeast, due to their
Dan Dority (W. Earl Brown) & Travis Tritt; Trixie (Paula Malcomson) & Natalie Maines; Wild Bill Hickok (Keith Carradine) & Alan Jackson; Calamity Jane Cannery (Robyn Wiegert) & Gretchen Wilson; Johnny Burns (Sean Bridgers) & Dierks Bentle
The lyrics say "He never never lied." Is that possible? Or even desirable?
I write this from a subterranean lair packed tight with things: books, CDs, LPs, cassettes, an old laptop or two, and a pile of baseball memorabilia. This is where I do my writing, on a desk among all
I didn’t know how long it’d been since he’d last eaten. I also knew he needed water.
“Hm,” Yoda grunted, considering the foyer, it’s openness, how exposed he was, and what he could do about it. “Hm,” he grunted again.
The last night of the trip, you stay with one of his friends in Vallecitos, New Mexico.
When my mother built me
again, she did not wait for sobs
to pass. She left clasps undone
then wept in her bedroom.
I tried to reach for the gown
but my fingers mumbled back hair
into metal
