With a hammer’s claw
I drew two nails out of the fallen sentinel—
beech tree, lying across the way—
freeing the trail-sign it wore in uprightness,
for transfer to a standing neighbor.
Next I dragged the newly-horizontal
out of the way of hikers, to recline and rot
into a different usefulness.
Last, I attached the sign
onto its new host, economically employing
the same two nails, one of them bent,
and left the tree to its obligation of guidance.
No beech, the chosen one
bled a little with this new responsibility—
to caution those who flee
the fleshpots of suburbia toward a promise
of uplands flowing with runoff
and the honeyed tones of mating songbirds:
“Unless you mean to bushwhack
your way through unaccustomed wilderness,
you need to turn precisely here.”…
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Freedom tasted like chunks of strawberry ice cream sliding down our newly-licensed forearms onto the leather car seats we promised my mother we’d keep clean. You screamed every time you merged onto the highway, the exclamatory shape of your mouth ringed with sweet berries and cream. The volume knob on the radio turned sticky from our iced fingers turning up the music so we could shout cheesy lyrics at each other, letting songs about living while we’re young get lost in the wind. We would fight over who got to drive to our weekly ice cream trip, but I let you win most of the time. You looked better driving my mom’s old minivan anyways.
Irresponsibility was whirled into the rocky road ice cream I ate at the Fourth of July party to try to mask the cheap taste of vodka searing down my throat.…
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You would never choose Cliff as your landlord, but our favorite gifts come unbidden.
This particular gift stood six feet, five inches, a pink behemoth with a Chow-Chow named Nugget. With a sweet tooth for the absurd and little to lose, he had purchased a farmhouse connected to the Eastbrook Post Office. Nearly every wall dripped with feral murals of vines and birds, cave paintings from a former resident without restraint. Spattered Spanish tile formed a yellow-brick labyrinth, and all the closets were the color of asparagus. Cliff would chop the house into four apartments. The USPS would pay him rent.
For $800/month including utilities, it would be my first home out of grad school.
Cliff was breathless the day I met him, a condition I would learn was his default.…
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The child takes us Mason-jarring
out where the backyard meets the woods
Soon each jar contains a nondescript black beetle
of uncertain entomology duly given
a name such as ours
At supper call we two adults assure
that Mike and Ike and Lucy are released
back into their usual less confining environment
and forgotten
Freedom is a simple gift to give another
yet if I were to be kept anywhere
I would prefer a grownup girl’s memory of me
to a Mason jar
as like Ike Black-Beetle
I crawl the world’s backyard
under or over blades of grass taller than me
hiding from sun and sparrow
– Russell Rowland…
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Kannika loved buffalos almost as much as she loved ice cream.
“Buffalos are stupid and stubborn,” her father said. “Only good for hard work and keeping the grass down.”
Kannika paid him no attention when he said things like that. She knew better.
He was a grumpy old man with a sour heart. She couldn’t even remember the last time she had seen him smile. She wondered what her mother saw in him. In Kannika’s eyes, her mother was the most beautiful woman in the district. Her beauty and grace were famous, her kindness unsurpassed.
When she wasn’t at school, Kannika was helping her father in the fields. If it were up to him, Kannika wouldn’t be allowed to go to school, but her mother insisted she needed an education.…
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In the earnest 1990s, I ran with a pack of good boys who aced AP Physics and fancied themselves feral.
The sincerest member of the stable, with the straightest laces and the thinnest wrists, owned no fewer than ten NO FEAR shirts.
Geriatric millennials remember these vividly: atop the image of some apex predator with its mouth open, were the words, red in tooth and claw: NO FEAR.
These shirts were evergreen on Sam, but they overtook his stick-insect frame in January. This was when I decreed our Banish Winter Campaign, a faintly successful annual attempt to get my best friends to wear their brightest colors each Monday.
But my three best friends, as soft-spoken spokeswolf Sam explained, were boys. And boys. Didn’t. Wear. Bright. Colors.…
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On my way to the countryside, I pedaled through what’s known as Hollywood, a cluster of shacks at the edge of town. They listed to the side, had gaps between the sideboards and looked almost as if a stout summer breeze could flatten them. It was said some still had dirt floors.
As I approached the place closest to the street, I could see that the yard was a mess of weeds, patches of dirt and concrete yard ornaments broken beyond recognition. There was a mongrel with swollen teats and a guy sitting on a lawn chair. He had a cigarette pack rolled in the sleeve of his T-shirt and appeared to be soaking his feet in an inflatable wading pool. A young girl in a feed sack dress was playing hopscotch by a wash tub at the side of the road.…
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