On:

The sun glints a wicked lighton the whitecaps today. the landline shimmers,the quivering mouth of a lovesick sailor who keepshis girl’s likeness folded up and pressed to the inside ofhis cheek like chewing tobacco. the fabric of my dress clings tothe shape I make, long like a breath arched likeContinue Reading

On:

Long-haired Apollo sits with legs splayed outin perspective slant, upright bass in hand, pluckingsteady, mooded, sweat beading his pulsed temple,beating in dissonant tones that wrap deftly over, around his triple knotted fingers, doting on thewide frequency which sounds through the blackas one would on the brow of a lover. HeContinue Reading

On:

I felt itsomewhere behindmy eyeswhen I wokeup that I’d be lateto work.I had a bad dream –I’ve beenhaving bad dreamsthe past few nights,but in this oneI was aloneand confused. When I wokeup I also felt aloneand confusedbut then I movedmy foot slightlyand I felt Sarah’s calf,warmand firmand still. Whenshe wokeupContinue Reading

On:

My mother always tells me, you’ve got to pick your gods.She says this, leaning at a crow’s angle over a cup of coffee,a glass of wine, through the oiled steam of a stir fried dinner; from under the tumble of her quilted bedclothes,voice muffled behind a peeling murder mystery;shouted outContinue Reading

On:

On Saturday morning, not too early, really,Sarah and I drove North, up out of the city,to leave it. The reason wasthat on this particular day, last year,both of us broke up with our respective partners.By accident (of course)they happened to be on the same day.Our breakups did.By happier accident, SarahContinue Reading

On:

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

On:

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

On:

We set ourselves out at dawn when there’s nothing but brinesoak’d air and heath. The least weird of our sisters takes out a green Crayola marker and colored in a burnt orange leaf this morning. The ink was too thin: too much water, not enough pigment, running black between theContinue Reading