A Normal Couple
Sometimes I think he’s better … and then we’re out to eat and the coughing begins and I forgot—he forgot, we forgot—an inhaler (which bag was it in??) and then the looks from the other diners start and I swear he’s not dying and I’m not a bad wife for sitting here unconcerned as he...
The Old West End
With a vein of Lucille Clifton’s “In the Inner City” Our mothers left for work before we woke for school in Toledo in 1975 and our fathers left us latchkeys on the windowsill or under the mat in the inner part of the screen door. Our city was marked by demarcation zones of avenues. We...
I Only Know Jimmy Because
he waves whenever I walk by. He lives four blocks away, and he lets the neighbor dogs poop in his yard. He lets mine. That says all you need to know about him, or all I needed to know. To say it’s okay for an animal to crap on your lawn is to say we...
Somewhere on a city street
three pink roses sit out on a peeling window sill. No bigger than the tip of my thumb, they’re tucked in tiny thimbles of water. It’s a day when we walk back slowly from the community center, late summer heat, a strange, sticky silence on the streets. It starts to rain, not quite drops, but...
Tell No Tales
First day on the ship. Hodge shows me around. Here’s the mess deck. Here’s your rack. Your workspace, ragged. Oscar flag hanging from the bulkhead. Your shipmates, Beltowski, Pierpoli. That’s forward, aft. Pronounced folk-sul, bosun. Watch your head! Months go by. We cast off. So this is the ocean. Get to work. Sign these papers...
White Female, Brown Male, Black Vehicle
In four years Caitlin will walk up the stairs of a barn in a cornfield wearing a white lace dress and a peony in her hair and become my wife, but presently I’ve known her for three weeks and a sheriff pulls her out of the driver’s seat and walks her along the interstate to...
Two Transsexuals, a Children’s Swim Team, and a Lady With a Hammer Walk Into a Locker Room
To swim, a person is often subjected to the horror of a gendered locker room. My girlfriend and I love to swim. We deserve to swim. But despite the signs plastered to the front of the locker room doors at our local public pool, people have the right to use whatever room they want based...
My First Dead Body
I clicked up with a gang of my peeps at the payphone across the street from Brown Middle School. We were fourteen and school had just let out for the afternoon. The sun was bright and smiling down on us, just your average happy day. I called my girlfriend, Boo-boo-kitty-fuk, told her I was coming...
With the Braves On, My Father Washes Me
A week before my twenty-sixth birthday, I lie morphine-cradled in the recovery wing of Pelham Medical Center. I reek of sweat and surgical tape, blood and unsalted hospital beef, my hospital gown sweet with syrup from several spilled fruit cups. It’s Friday, which means I’ve been stagnant in bed for a week. Deciding my stench...
Between Us
My town didn’t have much, but we had sunsets. Tremendous, spectacular sunsets, as if a Hollywood director had orchestrated the whole thing, lighting crews and special effects enlisted night after night, fulfilling notes that read: Bigger — More violet — Cue the eagle! In their glow we made promises, confessed, forgave one another, believed in...
Ways to Change Your Life
I could have a baby or I could buy a banjo I could write down my dreams each morning instead of eagerly surrendering them to the abyss of unmemory I could read the labels on food packaging buy organic eggs from happy chickens force myself to care about microplastics I could be Tiktok famous (if...
Sanguine
All animals have blood hearts Omnia animalia sanguine* corda All animals have blood in their hearts Sanguine is no longer meaty. We have squeezed out the blood. Lobbed off ventricles and arteries to leave just an outline <3 Our animal hearts once bloody / bloodthirsty now...
The Hawk Outside of the NICU
One morning, as we ate sandwiches—mine had apples on it—a hawk appeared outside the hospital cafeteria window. Or no, it was not a cafeteria, it was a cafe. Which was meant, perhaps, to conjure a sense of normalcy. You could order paninis and mochas and bowls of soup. My husband and I sat there talking...
In Chinese I Am Six Years Old
I know the sweet shape of sugar, tang, and the soft sweep of cat, mao. I know wo e le, I’m hungry; I know wo bu zhi dao, I don’t know. I know wo yao, I want; wei shen me, why; dui bu qi, I’m sorry. Last March, I learned the word ai zheng, cancer....
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Plastic Makes It Possible
by Nicole Walker• 3 Comments