Nobody knows where the boxes came from, only that they were always there, under the sink, stacked high in a corner of the closet–shoe boxes, shoe boxes everywhere. My mother wrapped her gifts in these–candies, hair ribbons, small sweaters… All I remember her giving me came in an old Stride Rite or Hush Puppy, the …
Has he called in the cats now, made certain all are accounted for, that their bellies are full, that they have not become food for coyotes come down into porch light for water? Is he reading a book under the cool warmth of our down comforter, clearing his throat between chapters as if he’d actually …
I eat powdered donuts from the box, the sugar dusting my denim shirt. He drives, sips coffee, fiddles with the radio. Anyone who sees us at a stop sign will think we’re comfortable, two middle-aged people out early. No one will know how unsettled we feel, how eager we are to fill our life with …
The man I love calls me doll, calls me baby. He phones me everyday, his sweet, sweet girl. Sometimes we talk about his mother, how she lost thousands on worthless coins she’d read about in the back of a magazine, how it makes him sad to think of her alone, wrapping the coins in doilies, …
I know what she’s going through. I know how anyone who’s loved a cat, allowed one to sleep against her face, allowed one to lay its full body along her outstretched legs until they go numb, can grieve for months. I once met a woman so attached to her cat she couldn’t imagine her house …
Sometimes my father’s hand shakes, sends fat drops of paint to splatter my patio. He’s fond of this work, and I like the way this man feels in the sun, healthy and honest and responsible. I work next to him on the shorter ladder, my hair sticky against my neck. He says, This heat’s a …
You know what I’m talking about, you’ve seen the headlines too–how So and So Collapses in an airport, a doctor diagnoses exhaustion–how So and So goes away to rest, to reclaim some sense of self. I always imagined this luxury of tiredness affordable only to the rich, movie stars and rock ‘n’ roll celebrities, people …
I know you’ve come from some other woman. The New Orleans night is all over your clothes. You’ve watched me come out of mine with the calculation you give things earned and now owned. See these thick breasts once a high and proud prize in Georgia. See these blue laced legs known early as the …