Tape Deck

It was hot and that was about all it was. Peros drove. When he was tired of that, he drove some more. Then he pulled the truck to the side of the road and, taking the map from the console, looked out upon the brushy land stretched endlessly into the open yawn before...

Misplaced Karenina

I am perhaps in aweof your feathered-cap majesty,you hypocrite princess,our transplanted Kareninaof a Kremlin motorway.What good or what rot,in being a century short or tall,when I cannot put thumb and fingeron your oily roots …I see such strange woundsin your...

point nemo

I was told truth is the oakthat holds its leaves each winter. A promisedelayed. As it turns out, I forgetthe rules. I never can know them. This one is anothermask for doubt. This one is the coverfor an empty bed. This one is the sheet drawn back—the old clothes...

The letters between us

1.Did you hear the horse thunder and taste the dustin your cabin? The wild hooves kicked up a stormlast night. The hours passed as I reread your letter,licked the envelope flap you sealed, traced your name, and wondered if you were reading my poems.Nothing fills...

skybound

She’d only meant to ride the elevator down to collect the mail. Now she was trapped in it. Contained by sleek, unclimbable metal walls, a round chrome rail that raced around the space to nowhere, a dark touchscreen panel of buttonless buttons, and underneath her, the...

my plan for marriage

My plan for marriagewas couragethe way a planelands by sinkingthen with a rush of strengthflexes to kiss the tarmacas an equal a drama soon forgottenas we wait to seewhose luggage is whoselooping round the lucky horseshoemagnet pull of what will emergeand what must be...

conversation

He tucks the $5 into his sockand looks up at my babysays When my son was a babyI used to sit up all nightto make sure he was breathing WHERE IS HE NOW?I am screamingin my headWHERE IS HE NOW?he is also screamingin his headmaybe With practice we canlisten past the...

the cha cha slide

the DJ wants us to do the cha cha slide.the DJ wants our claps our stomps our“cha cha real smooth”—the DJasks us to give breath to death andbreathe seething into laughter and standa couple feet apart on the laminatedance floor and turn our insides intoour outsides....

the world: part

This is how… We read the signs. We readthe gaps around the signsthat said STOP. We filled in forgiveness. We sawourselves inside the bottle. We splashedwater on our faces but the water was wineand our faces grapescrushed into bottlesin crates in lorriesin toddlers’...