Why do you draw the sheets
over your head
and shrink from the day?
Is it because your father
taught you life
was an aching tooth
to be endured until
they finally removed it?
Or that friends’ fatal illnesses
began with nothing more
than a numbness in the arm
or a lump in the throat
and you’ve lost your energy
of late?
Or is it the anniversaries
of those who,
lulled by the frosty season,
never awakened at all?
You search for them
in your brooding dreams,
your footsteps echoing
down deserted streets
in cities with no name.
Stretching out your arms now,
you are relieved to find
a warm body next to yours.
You press her hand
and paddle to the kitchen
and set a pot of coffee there
for two.…
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I’m just one on the assembly line
Strung up on a bar stool
Torso pierced by your
Meat hook irises
Hands glide along the
Glinting metal counter
“Let me buy you a drink.”
Just slip that liquid past my teeth
Let the grog sweeten the meat
You dress my flesh,
Pepper me with compliments
“So pretty,” you say. “Such a pretty girl.”
And I wonder
Do my flanks meet your standards?
Do you enjoy the pulsing
Frenzy of my jugular?
Do you want to drain the blood
From my lips?
Grasp my hips
And split me in two?
Process me
Into pieces
For easier digestion?
Well, buddy
Let me break it down to the bones
You are more like me
Than you’d like to be
And we
Are nothing but
Gristle and stardust
You’ve seen the butcher.…
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Blow wind, blow wind, blow my baby back to me.
Blow wind, blow wind, blow my baby back to me.
Well you know if I don’t soon find her, I will be in misery.
–”Blow Wind Blow,” McKinley Morganfield (Muddy Waters)
When the wind stopped, there was an eerie and sudden silence before debris began returning to Earth. Shower doors and 2 x 4s and spatulas and stuffed animals tumbled from the sky alongside terrified cats and dogs. And when the dazed residents began emerging from their bathtubs or hall closets or from under piles of scattered rubble, the horror was everywhere. Roofs pulled and tossed like playing cards, cars toppled over and piled like Lincoln Logs, second stories sliced from houses like layers from a cake.…
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I’m sorry Daddy, I made you run. I tried to be good.
I’m your Speedy Stevie, cuz I’m so fast and loud. I screamed real loud that night, huh?
I didn’t know the coppers would come.
I shouldn’ta tried to make you stop.
Or go.
Mama cries all night long, holding her pillow real tight, so I don’t hear.
Trying to make everything white & soft like Snowflake’s fur.
Wishing her pillow was you.
She says it’s not my fault. I was just scared and wanted it to stop.
But she never cried all night ‘til now.
I got so mad yesterday I broke that plane we made. Threw it so hard
it flew straight out the window.
Oh Daddy, I laughed! But Mama screamed and yelled, wouldn’t let me help
or pick up the pieces.…
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At the bell, Nick and Marvin are walking unwillingly into the gymnasium. Colorful chairs are set up in neat rows. Most of the seats are already taken.
“Let’s squeeze in over there,” Nick says, pointing to an almost empty row.
Nick and Marvin met on the first day of high school. They met in an English class on the American canon. Nick really likes Salinger, but he prefers English writers. Nick writes, too. He writes long historical fictions about wars in other countries. Marvin doesn’t like to read or write, but is intrigued by Nick’s stories.
They squeeze into the row, trying to slide past people’s knees.
Then something happens.
An older boy grabs Marvin’s ass. He clenches on his ass cheek so tight that Marvin yelps.…
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There.
Jaw chiseled and strong. Mouth wide open; a smile flashing blindingly white teeth. Eyes displaying chronicled accomplishment. Hair black and full. Tan skin conceals athletic muscles and bones. The A.C. pumping and humming as hard is it could, keeping him cool.
I step out of the car and into a new environment surrounded by popsicle sticks adorning backpacks. He looks at me, “Well, this is it. I’m always here for you. Good luck in college.”
He was never prying or probing. Always helping and holding.
He says, “I love you, Son.”
I wanted to tell him I loved him. I wanted to thank him for everything that he had done for me. I swallowed my words as I assured myself I could tell him that some other time.…
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I cannot stop licking picture frames. Wood frames, plastic frames, circular metallic frames, rectangular ceramic frames, leathery antiques, dusty collectibles, South American frames, frames with inspirational quotations inscribed on them, I want to lick them all.
On the night I met my ex-fiancée’s parents, her father walked into his study to find me mid-lick with a frame circumscribing a portrait of his ostensibly Confederate great-great-grandfather. I tried to apologize, but my tongue had got caught on a splinter.
My therapist tells me we all get to decide what it means to live A Happy Life. My priest disagrees. He says, “Even if Hitler had felt warm and fuzzy standing over the carnage of a concentration camp, he was not happy. Happiness is an objective state comprising the virtues that make us truly human.…
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