The time will come when Earth wobbles so fiercely that overcompensation is impossible. Notice its placement, its tilting, its hanging in there, just there, without a way to know it’s going to stay there securely for a few million years before the sun swells up beyond its present state and renders the Second Coming a moot point. Unless that will be the Second Coming, an inferno that makes Satan’s playground mere child’s play. A blistering nugget singed beyond recognition. Encompassing flames, heat, molten rock. All things melting into the air, the sky. Souls as blemish-free as a sleek new tablecloth – an afterthought along with everything else. No more thought will be left to hang our coats on when it gets too stuffy to move.…
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You gotta get a good rock. A big one. But not huge. Come down the hill to the end of our grass. There. An “X” marks the spot — we’ve got lotsa rocks around it. It’s not an “X” really, but mommy says the place is “precious,” so it’s kinda like treasure. So you grab one rock. It’s smooth, fits in your hand, and it’s not too heavy.
We need paint. Come up the hill to my house. Shh! Mommy’s being quiet in her chair. We can get some nail polish off the dresser in her room. It’s a kind of paint. Mommy won’t mind. She doesn’t see me when it’s her quiet time. Look, here’s a good red one beside the picture frame. The photo’s kinda old.…
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My daughter has a lot of demands when I want her to go to bed. She’s supposed to be in bed at eight, but I usually don’t fall asleep until after midnight. I give her enough attention during the day; you’d think she’d be tired enough to fall asleep when she should. But no.
I put her down at eight, but she asks me for a glass of water at eight-twenty. It has to be a clean glass, and it has to have the right amount of water. If I don’t do it right, she gets cranky.
At eight fifty-two, she’ll ask me to read her a story from the leather-bound tome on the stand in the corner. It has lots of stories, but she only wants to hear the same one.…
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It appears meager,
this knapsack of provisions
to sustain me as I venture into
your desert
but you know how thirsty
I get in the heat
and how small reversals
cause me to lose heart.
A blue mirage distorts a dune
into a faraway figure – perhaps it’s you.
I brush sand from my eyes.
It is not certain we will find
our way across.
An oasis of palms
may offer the promise of shade
or a feast for vultures.
– Dayle Olson…
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It was almost two am. I was in the common room of my college dorm, reading The Story of a New Name, the second book in Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan series. It was Saturday; I had given up a night of partying and fun with friends to sit alone and read. Three of my friends came in and I was so engrossed in the book that I didn’t notice until they were a foot away from me. Two of them were visibly tipsy, eyes narrowed by tiredness. K leaned in and hugged me, relaxing all her body weight onto my shoulders, limbs loosening into sleep.
“Okay let’s go” the other two said and hoisted K up from me.
“Get high with that yet?” one of them says, looking at the battered copy lying in my lap.…
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She met the monster under her bed before she could form words. She was, however, at that age, rather adept at crawling. Evading the gaze of her parents, she reached her bedroom within seconds, past her crib, and headed straight for the eyes hovering in the darkness under what would eventually become her bed.
The eyes that met hers were a deep blue, with rusty streaks like forks of lightning. At first, the large eyes recoiled from her approach. The baby stopped and tilted her head slightly. She took one shuffle closer and reached out a small hand with short, chubby fingers. The monster slowly extended its neck and sniffed at the outstretched hand. It opened its mouth, revealing rows of yellowed, pointed teeth before unfurling its tongue to take a tentative lick at the substance stuck to the open palm.…
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The ground beneath her welcomed each footfall gratefully. The grass was saturated with the most recent rain. The rains came more and more frequently these days which Martha knew, after twenty-nine years in this town, meant spring was approaching. Martha basked in the little sunlight that peaked out behind the thin, white clouds above. The smell of rain-soaked earth rose up to her nose with each step toward town. The bare trees were just starting to bud, small little things, hardly visible on the dark brown boughs. The clatter of wooden wheels on the road to Marly accompanied her into town.
Martha longed to take off her shoes, lift the hem of her blue dress and stomp off into the mud, letting it push its way between her toes.…
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