Leave Off Doves Midway through the fall semester, an unnoticeable girl in Professor Woody’s Advanced Fiction workshop dyed her hair an unnatural shade of dark, changed her name to Tasmina, and turned in a story filled with made-up words. She handed out the story to her classmates to be work shopped the following week, and … Read more
In Praise of Two Hawks Fucking I am running along the left shoulder of Runyon Canyon looking for rabbit and owl and hawk and hummingbird and coyote while dawn clears her throat over the sleepy, sleeping city, and the light is ready to fall in thick waves like a girl unpinning her hair and shaking … Read more
Wasteland The city of Los Angeles is burning. The air is hot, dry, and charged with static electricity and fear. The Santa Ana winds are blowing in from hell, punishing the palm trees and swaying tall buildings. The wind carries with it sand from the eastern deserts and the charred remains of dried brush, dead … Read more
Children’s Church Before there was a building, church took place in the high school band room. People sat on pastel cement chairs, looking down at the band director’s podium. The floor was speckled, and I would look toward the floor while Pastor took the names of all the people who had cancer, people in the … Read more
The world is distorted: *** A tiny crack where walls meet Forms a burrow, where a spider Weeps its web onto the sinews Of my increasing thought. *** The dust on the cabinet is settled, staged with a perfect conception; With one large sweep Of breath, it is in chaos, *** It is indivisible as … Read more
Painters Have you ever watched squirrels at work or at play or at whatever it is they do during business hours? You know how they can be entertaining and frightening all at the same time? They leap about with one another, but then one comes charging at you, and you freeze into some awful compression … Read more
