The Devil licks its fingers clean from the breaking of hearts. Fingers wiped on the walls of a karaoke bar. The bar top is wet, but not from what you think. She looked me up and down. Her hair was black like a nest of shadows, all tangled together. She picked up my beer by … Read more

  If you yell air raid he’ll drop and give you twenty.   His wires they say are all fucked up. His eyes glazed as he reels   his way to the library most days. Some say he was in   Vietnam, others say he hasn’t come back yet. I always   see him by … Read more

  the woman who works at the laundromat is giving away her husband;   A plaid shirt one day, Striped shorts the next, So he’ll never notice, until   He wakes one morning to Only a sock, and a Letter scrawled in un- Even ink on a laundry ticket:   love is gone, as am … Read more

I swam every morning in a lagoon. My long hair never tangled as it dried. The sun combed and curled it for me back then. Leeches kept to their own side of the bog. Jasmine petals fell around me as I dove. The man sometimes came to watch me backstroke. The man never noticed I … Read more

The first snow falls on the city. An ancient Desoto with a pearl roof parks at the curb. Face it, we’re the couple marked for tragedy. You bump into me window shopping — your stiletto heel stabbing my big toe through sneakers. You envision me as a minor actor in a cartoon world, throwing your … Read more

In workshop, Tall Tony rises, bites his bottom lip, confesses, Every night, I dream of living in a house. We listen to him recall the day his dad left, how the thud of the front door rattled kitchen plates. He then raises his gaze, looks at us through smudged glasses, shuffles to his seat in … Read more

Tyrone has a walk, a don’t-fuck-with-me gait. Second day of class, he calls Wheatley an Uncle Tom. That poet just followed those aristocrats who enslaved her, adopted their social order, he says. By mid-semester, he dismisses Woolf, rolls his eyes at Plath. Those writers and their suicides, he says. He praises Hansberry, digs A Raisin … Read more

The engraver and cartographer, John Spilsbury, of London, is believed to have produced the firstjigsaw puzzle around 1760, using a marquetry saw.  I learned the world as I sat, still as a stone while the sky broke into puzzle pieces and fell on me. “There it is,” I thought, “just waiting for me to put … Read more

I have craved and coveted until my throat closed with the exhaustion of it. The same   goes for waiting. I foresaw a certain future which did not take place so I waited   until another future rose up, brought lessons cruising through the bedrooms of my days   like a Continental Town Car (circa … Read more

Remembering that morning, as father stood wavering on the beach, his toe writing about mother in the sand, while the sea and sky converged on his figure like two blades. Remember that afternoon, as he paced by the collapsing waves, and the gulls broke the blank hotel silence, circling over the field of palm stubble … Read more

Regarding the traffic spilling down the streets at dusk, slow pleasure, as the brakes are pressed, released, and pressed again. Regarding the canvas flag in the plaza giving way in the wind, folding up, framing a triangle of sky and snapping to attention again. Regarding the pale stones lining the dark paths in the park, … Read more

Twlight in a small town, the boys prowling the street, driving around helpless and full of longing. Two children burst from the shadows and run into a doorway, quivering like moths, their torches arched with joy, as they shout, “S’prised you!” Grandmother steps onto the porch and calls in a level voice, “Home now.”Joan E. … Read more

There’s a sign in the lobby that reads: Fine in unblinking neon. The day before you arrive, I don’t notice. After you’re gone, it’s there — suddenly constant, freakishly pink. The hotel bartender, from Kansas, tells me he builds large scale sculptures. He’s trying to reconstruct the one room schoolhouse his mother taught in on … Read more

Nigel regrets his rap days. I make mixes of emo songs I loved ten years ago. In Texas, he’s divorced and I’m dying. Back home there’s him in a track suit performing in Kim Shorey’s basement. And then there’s me loving it. I’m Rob Base and I came to get down… This is what adults … Read more

In our shadowed bedroom a small weight leans against me, surprises me awake. The dog’s sigh echoes my wife, both restless in their dreams. She lifts him onto our bed when tom-toms of thunder drive nightmares up the horizon, or on the first thankful night we return home from a trip. This satisfies his need … Read more

Take the stairway down past strewn and damp-dappled rough hewn planks broken cobbles holding the crush above the weight of ruined rooms feel for each step hopelessness choking thoughts your breath loud proceed over splinters torn photos memories a murmur ahead explains the dampness on your skin the stirring of waters your foot goes suddenly … Read more