All or Nothing, Self-Portrait at Twenty-Seven
It’s all empty beer cans and skinny dipping. (Bud Light and chlorine.) A guitar player with a beard who won’t let go as hard as you do. It’s teasing the strings of your orange bikini while he tosses his trunks onto the stone. It’s the ease of your body through dark water. The day he...
Seascape with Eagle, Driftwood, Ravens, Seagull, Two Men and Their Phones
The ravens look miniature compared to the eagle crouched in the crook of driftwood tree, tearing a seagull to shreds. Think beach bone, skeleton perch. Think rock, tide-worn. The man I watch watches the eagle, ignoring the ravens and the breeze at the back of his neck until he can’t, and pulls his hoodie over...
Dead Babies Photo
Puffy white satin folds and clumps like clouds around the two babies. Lying side-by-side in an open casket, ghost-gowns drape down their tiny bodies. Their heads appear to float. One baby is darker than the other. Both have blackened and hollow eyes like sunken shiners that won’t fade into the purplegreenyellow of the living. Time...
As I Unscrew: A Letter
Dear Karen, As I unscrew the cap to the bottle of Gordon’s gin, the boar’s head on the label looks appalled, its eye a wide dilated circle of disbelief (that yes, I am pouring yet another drink, that no, I am not measuring my pour, that yes, I do think a 1:2 tastes watered down,...
Not Like You
I’m memorizing a license plate number, which I glimpsed when he grabbed me by my ponytail, punched me, and dragged me into his truck. I repeat it silently, obsessively. NLU-285. Parked in the woods, dozens of miles from the lights of Portland, the midnight air is thick, damp, barely cool. I smell pine trees, clean...
Cairo Tunnel
I nudge through the turnstile, putting the stiff yellow ticket in my pocket and crossing a footbridge to the other side of the tracks, where I head toward the cluster of women on the platform. It’s rush hour. Morning salutations compete with beehive intensity. I scoot forward and back. Soon, the Metro barrels up, and...
Summer is Over
When you step outside you will notice summer is gone. The chill of the air will frisk you through your cotton t-shirt and jeans. Your exposed toes will be sort of cold and you will know then that summer has turned its porch light off. And it will feel like a North Carolina autumn evening,...
The Bluest Eye
Without warning, as if following some Biblical injunction, the boy reached in and plucked out his left eye. He did it quickly, right hand ambushing his face. My sister and I stepped back. It’s rare for a glass eye to make it into your home. And even more rare for it to pop out. There...
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