Because the wreck could not be fixed, they dragged it under an oak. First Budweiser, then Jim Beam, they doused the crushed tanks, kicked the warped fork and pretzeled spokes— the headlight looked like a broken bowl. Someone brought out the come-along and the logging chains, others grabbed gas and pistols and lighters and ten …
If we could choose, I think we’d want white horses. They look good in light, tearing green around their feet not looking up, not minding us. We’d want them going fast enough to get us past the obvious, despite their breath pushed hard around the bit we wish we didn’t need to get us out …
Braced against the wood post, I watch the horses gallop out of the barn, their buckskin legs beating the ground like fists into dough, their slick bodies bustling toward the corner of the field where the fence has begun to rot, is almost jumpable. At the rails they snort but do not attempt the last …
hummmm hum it hum means we in Urdu we hummmm hum hummm humesha means always always in Urdu we always hum humesha hum it on my hymen a hymn thin as a membrane hum humesha humanghee humanghee means harmony we always harmonise on my hymen your mouth mucous membranes my half-moon membrane reverberate in harmony …
Hooded in coats, we’re coming in from a breathtaking blizzard. One of us is looking down. The other looks back into the whiteout. No way to tell from this shot since all skin is covered. Behind us, the figure—it should stand for something— that we formed. We’ve been framed between the threshold and the storm. …
Spring snow never hurts us, but still it’s a dangerous thing. It stays our lives and shrinks our days, like any dangerous thing. I loved you because you had my father’s name and shale- blue eyes flecked with green: serpentine, dangerous things. Early April, North Atlantic wind: half-thawed mud and ice. For a diver, to …
While my wife and child drink slurred silence of sleep and beads of sweat from a cloudless day have dried, I rise. Cicadas thread scratched voices, tree to tree when I pass. Dogs bark their Benedictus then return to Sunday rest as half a moon clears the cloud litter and Dreamland is stilled. Blue Devils …
On any given day, minutes from the East Busway the driver tells me the poor people ride, I stroll up Homewood Avenue. Candy wrappers, bottles, cans, along the walkway to the corner of Kelly, where community college sits. Before the riots in ’68, it used to be the 5 & 10, the GC Murphy’s. My …