"On Trepidation" and "When I'm Lonely, I Shop Online for Things I Don't Need"
Always, I am navigating some half-abandoned landscape— part future, part past. Whenever I have a companion, it is my ex husband—the man who, after our divorce seven years ago, moved states away, leaving me to raise our kids mostly solo. On this particular morning, it finally occurs to me that these dreams may not be normal.
When she calls, Momma asks about Beau still.
My Harry Styles poem has gotten very good at glass of Lambrusco
on the arm of the sofa not crashing & purpling the... more
Jeff O told us that he and Brian H split after watching Chasing Amy...
sat on my couch for twenty-four hours popping oxycontin while I watched a full season of Gilmore Girls. Lorelai and Rory were not on speaking terms and I missed my mom.
It doesn’t sit right anymore, so neither does he. But in the Brooklyn neighborhood where my mom grew up, he’d walk on his hands for an audience of Irish-Catholic children. Older now than he was then, they’re still in awe.
My brother always comments on how big the sky is in my little stretch of western Kentucky. We crane our necks and peer at the sickle moon, the unblinking stars.
There’s a picture of you at queer prom, in the photo booth, faces alight with total bliss.
I removed an aluminum tab from my son's mouth and told my friend her eyebrows looked good. Her heart seemed full.
Dad used to take pictures of us sleeping in the old Fox Lake house. Don’t call me crazy–I know you remember it, too. I can’t find proof, though.
The cops said this was legal if the cat was on his property.
One evening you come home to discover Boris Yeltsin standing in your kitchen.
a man stands on stage his cue cards flashing...
But John Prine was bigger than memory. John was never tainted.
Twelve hours later, I surrendered to sleep at a rest stop.
I knew making him leave would be like pulling a turtle from its shell; we grew up thinking they were two different things, when really they were one.
The text said: Hey! I think I just saw you cross the street (I’m in the red Prius). How are you?
Did your grandmother live not on a lake, but near?
No but my Grandfather lived in Long Island, near the bay. My grandmother lived in Wisconsin. She was far away. She was the good one.
On Human Origins
You take a half-person’s body, then another half-person’s body, and you connect them together and put them inside... more
This is how we played: one of us would lay on top of the other fully clothed, “go dead,” and see if the other could move. He... more
On Day One, Larry-the-Lizard quits smoking
and eating saturated crap.
Day Two: he buys a hard pack... more
I bought a compilation of Michael Jackson Number Ones when the Wal-Mart Supercenter finally opened. It feels right to have viewed the future from my bedroom, door closed, music up.
