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I wish I was Vin DieselThe only bone I ever broke was a fucking toothVin diesel drove a car out of one skyscraper into anotherI’m so thin, my own family says I’ll float away in the windI bet Vin has never questioned how much of a man he is ToContinue Reading

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The new parents declined every social invitation two weeks before traveling and shopped for groceries only late at night. When it was time, they took the train at off-hours to a hotel with stringent safety protocols, and made sure their international airline had excellent air purification procedures. They were careful,Continue Reading

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“Look what you have done, Daddy. Those people in the little houses can stay in their homes. My friend, Bill, lives there. He is the neatest guy. Can we go see him sometime?” “We have to go to the hospital for your treatment today, Johnny. Maybe.” “Maybe what? They saidContinue Reading

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In part, our cellar is a well.When the ground swells, pregnant with ocean brineand rain, the water rises: murky and dustclotted,filtered through groundfloor pores. In part, I remembermy mother downstairs in the slow, slow, steady tide, I remember herwildness, brave and rockjawed in the face of her house, her house’sbetrayal.Continue Reading

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My mother worries onebone in her body like the windwarps a grain field. It is the glowingmetal rod in her left shin — the poetry dowsing rod. At night she sleeps stilland the rod points up to her blood-pumping heart, twice out, years longto work, still — and glows blueContinue Reading

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She struggles to breathe in the icy air,gulping trouble and guile from voicesnot her own. She has learned to skate betweendazzlers and blunderers on the gridlockedcity rink, ankles burning with intent andtentative discovery of the sweetspot for equipoise, remaining mostly upright,steering into a valiant glide, knowinga fall is imminent, inescapablewhenContinue Reading

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I can buy two comics for a quarterat the druggist near the department storenext to the restaurant where we eat outalmost every Friday night. ’66it is, and I’m just ten; my allowanceis twenty-five cents a week. I blow iton superheroes. I’m a good student,bring home A’s and B’s, and amContinue Reading

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This day limps and whimpersin a sudden mob of jeers and taunts.Remorse muscles in, blockingthe tease of possible lightwith a fuggy pulse of wayward,gravel-blind, monstrous self-absorption. This is the end of the worldand only imps and devils are afoot,the wrecks beset by iron-hearted lootersstealing movement from the air, invitinga tepidContinue Reading

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I stretch for the comic book at the topof the spinner rack but I can’t reach it–I’m too small and my heroes are too high.I don’t think about what that means then but,forty-three years later, it all makes senseand would make a good comic book, too, ifI could pencil andContinue Reading