It’s been five years, but this boy still / shines when he smiles. I stare at his jaw / as we shiver on the rooftop of this rundown / hotel, waiting for the waiter to get his beer.

No secrets fill a drowsy whale, / perfectly hollow gullet, / its song only speculation, / music its only meaning.

Welcome to Hobart Photo Stories, a one stop shop for photos that will excite the brain, the eye and the heart.

—Tara Wray, photo editor 

These pictures might have been

Introductions are stupid. Mostly they get in the way. Probably you have skipped ahead to read the actual interview. That's what I would have done by now. If you're still here, this is what you need

You halt the flow of traffic in a crosswalk to retrieve a fallen penny, / cheer your good fortune, and whisper: landmine. 

i decide / the poem is // about me (i have / been told i have // narcissistic tendencies).

Love Story (1970, dir. Arthur Hiller)

It’s comical that the rich kid with a building at Harvard named after his family is a hockey bruiser while the baker’s daughter not good enough to marry

in the middle of making up a Tokyo bureau chief
i remember keeping E under the impression i read
all of Infinite Jest for our whole three year
relationship  & probably since 

Welcome to Hobart Photo Stories, a one stop shop for photos that will excite the brain, the eye and the heart.

—Tara Wray, photo editor 

(2014-present) Time in New

Sitting in the Montreal bus terminal I make a decision. To eat the last of my weed candies. 

When was the assertion of blackness anything other than an interrogation.
I’m fat and black and queer in america _They don’t know what to do with me

One summer morning, Lyle Condy was cycling down the steep, straight hill of Magdalene Road in the city of Cambridge. His bike had a bell in strict accordance with local ordinances regarding cycling. 

1.
My father died on Christmas Eve, 1986. I was three years old. When my mother broke the news, I responded in a startling way. "Death is just a figure of speech," I told her. Of course, at age

Months ago. Here it is me at the grocery getting flowers and deli meats and here’s the little boy with his face soft and fluffy and pink. 

Roxane Gay took me out to dinner five years ago. It was Roxane, Ashley C. Ford and me. We were in Indianapolis and it was the first time I'd met either of them. I remember thinking wow this is one

Before Nathan underwent surgery he made a list for if he survived, though it wasn’t that severe or threatening a procedure.

Digital Hellos

An erroneous message of two equals,
in a future program.

The Internet was given an italicized quote
above a colored text box,
he may have wanted to kill me.

This

He was at the window. I heard the tap-tap-tap.

After, we slunk back to Mema’s Alaskan Taco Hut and I crawled into a booth and ordered with two fingers like we were stuck in a Mad Men b-reel. I couldn’t see my hand held up, but from this

I am trying to come out to my father / but all he wants to talk about / are the 1985 Chicago Bears

“I don’t like how her flesh looks,” my daughter tells me. According to Phoebe, this woman has the flesh of a winter peach.

Before roosting in the city, starlings dive—
five thousand deep in flock. Like cells they follow the
law of localization. Bound by surroundings. Step into a

crowded elevator and take on

BROWSING FOR CHAINSAWS

The carwash that neighbors
the boarded-up hospital
suddenly leaks back to life.
A rust-eaten truck rumbles by,

a keg of insecticide banging
around in the

“We made out once,” my sister says. I thought “I was in love with him for a night.”

All i want is an apple but no one / is picking these days.

My daughter Lisbeth checks Missy’s gums for bleeders. “Sometimes the damage done takes generations to make itself known,” she says, nodding along with her words, agreeing with herself.