Fiction |
“Apartment” & “A Record of Her Months”
“In October, she tried to escape: the gate, ladder and over the back wall of the hospital. The first time, the nurses understood and told her to quit it. The second time, they limited her hours outside. The third, they called her husband.”
Poetry |
“Breaking,” “Once Upon A …,” & “Sumatra Wharf”
“… but this boundlessness breaks the spell of confinement, / vast and vaster and all the things you ever saw, / or held in your hands or thought or said, / will remain unspoken, / because they haven’t taken place.”
Poetry |
“Middle School,” “Metamorphosis,” “Persephone’s Friends” & “Metamorphosis”
“They cropped her // Out of images and didn’t say her name / Except to agree she never really was // That great a friend and maybe she was / Asking for it braless in that tank top.”
Fiction |
“Spoons and Thimbles” and “Coital Headache”
“… and if she finds herself in a dance hall of only ladies, Prince’s “Kiss” is going to play, and if “Kiss” plays, she’s going to take all six feet of her taut self to the floor and grind against everything her evangelical mother warned her about …”
Poetry |
“Literal,” “What Is That Song You Sing for the Dead?” & “Last Ocean”
“She wanted to see the comet that appears only every seventy-five / years because she knew she wouldn’t be alive the next time. / She said, I think that’s it, and pointed up — the whole-note stars, / the yard beneath muddy and humming.”
Poetry |
“Mirror, Mirror on the Wall,” “Verbal Alchemy,” “Oh Muse” & “Decreation”
“This sweet yearning to spark // with the word the depths of the dark. / Make gold from nothing but the vital name / and let the rest go up in smoke.”
Essay |
“Robert Desnos in the Desert”
“This is impossible, but Desnos is standing on the Mexican side of the Stanton Street Bridge, facing downtown El Paso. He is waiting for me to close the distance from one side of the international border to the other.”
Poetry |
“W. G. Sebald’s Last Walk”
“But a return to / Footsteps in chalky / Sand // Recalling vestigium / Meant trace or / Footstep”
Essay |
“Famous Men” and “Sure Can’t”
“So I bought the earrings, which were zircon, which is real and not to be confused with zirconia. Peachy-pink, for grounding, I guess, or healing, or hope, as is usually the case and almost always needed.”
Poetry |
“First Miracle,” “The Kind Stepmother” and “May Snow”
“I wanted everyone / to be unhappy, / like Grandfather Lenin who, obviously, wanted / everyone to be happy, / for when all is said and done we wanted the same thing: / fairness …”
Poetry |
“Smoke Day”
“There’s a saying about time when everything is on fire. / The morning entirely blue except one pink slash right where it all starts up.”
Poetry |
“Fantasies in ’56“
“The real goal for me was to turn into Hank: / big arms, a tattoo, and giggly housewives / who blushed and spluttered as I filled up their tanks.”
Poetry |
“Heaven’s Breath” and “Easter Basket”
“I am thinking about the 30 million / living things balanced on a person’s / shoulders in a precarious column 1000 / meters high. Don’t ask me where / I got that fact but it’s a fact and I saw it.”
Essay |
“Æ, the Letter Ash”
“The æsc (ash) tree was felled for spear handles, tablets, charcoal, bedframes, wagon wheels, oars — perhaps this is why the author of the Old English “Rune Poem” in the eighth century observes that the æsc is precious, although many men attack it.“
Poetry |
“[Elegy for My Uncle] or [Oubliette: craniosynostosis]” “[Elegy for My Uncle with Dime Store Turtle and a Scrawl of Desire]” & [Elegy for My Uncle with a Childhood in it]
“I feared it when I had a daughter but she’s okay and I’m okay / and it’s just that an AI is stroking us to death in this primal world // I’m glad / he never knew that …”