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.
My mother tells me how my father died. I’d learned only a week before that he had gangrene in his toes because of a sore he’d let fester.
Lenore was at the cusp. I’m cusping, Percy, she rasped. Percy was unsure what to do about it. Press forward? Hang back?
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.
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.
i trapped pete wentz
in a pastoral landscape
Married twenty years today, Heather and Vic play that game.
It’s the first time I remember feeling that superstrong tween indignation that he’d taken something that was supposed to be just mine.
They walked along the railroad somewhere in Atlanta on a cold and bitter night, the full moon above them like a yellow coin... more
At six years old, my father wanted to introduce me to his church friends. As a part-time pastor, it was crucial he make a good first impression.
I was 20 and I went around to have naked time with Matt.
Every car passing by might house a backseat scout
Were this place to close, or burn, or fall, in an earthquake, down.
Were it to flood or be bulldozed to make way for the gray... more
There is a crawl space in my lover’s house that his wife and children don’t know about. He likes to sing into it when he’s drunk and he’s only drunk when he’s with me.
Girls in white dresses. Girls with boys. Girls hanging on the arms of boys and girls who turn to give you a look as they pass by, asserting their position. Girls who know how to flirt with boys.
Nate and I were in a band together throughout high school — screamo with keyboards.
A city wide boil advisory is still out. Brain eating amoebas were detected in the tap.
I dreamed my brother gave his dog to a friend in New York
who could better care for... more
I could never straighten my legs for a cartwheel and with roller skating, I could never move them right.
Q-tips were her guilty pleasure. She loved the feel of them caressing her inner ear, reaching the itch she could otherwise not scratch.... more
If I’m going to be honest, my life has been running at something of a parallel to Husker Football for the last ten years, over which time I’ve tried to hack it as a musician, restaurateur, and writer.
A Flash Book Review of ‘50 Barn Poems’ and Brief Interview with Zac Smith
We heard something Anglo, unhinged, too human. We’d been hoping for Shrimp killing Cow or Cow killing Shrimp, but it was you, Bitcha, flailing and teetering about in the night sky.
My mother once jumped off a boat into a swarm of jellyfish. Why did she think they would not sting?
Sometimes, he gives me tips. Most of the time, it is this: “Take your time.”
She had us trade cardigans. She said it was an exercise in empathy.
