Somehow, she's me
Her hair is tied with a ribbon Saying "This is not for you." She wears a pendant of stamped brass Saying "Non sum qualis eram." "I have been a hero since birth," She tells herself, As though that will somehow Explain her scars. She...
The Fool
The badger looms over a small table, the short sleeve of her smock tugged down toward the table by a glass candy thermometer. A deck of colorful cards rest neatly stacked on its surface. Contrary to expectations, the room is bright and spacious. No...
Post-op images
Saturday is for mechanics. Sunday is for terror. Monday is for acceptance. Tuesday is for purging. Wednesday is for anxiety. Thursday is for sleep. * * * When I am asleep The world changes around me. In spring, I am changed. * * * I'm no good at...
Unseeing
On the morning of every day, when days are warm and there is no rain, on days when Lyut knows when it is day and when it is night, he will gather his ingredients onto a small board and sit at the entrance to his cave and make his incense for three days...
For Dwale
Beneath that evening's breeze the sickly sweet And brazen scent of countless flow'rs Awoke inside of you a darkened sleep Of dreams dug deeper than the soil. Oh, we are waking minds who missed that scent! ...
Penguins
Too many suits move in too many lines. They circle banquet tables, hawk-eyed, hunting crudites, canapés, bruscheta. Fingers ferry food -- fish, perhaps -- finding slack-jawed mouths already open, squawking at wayward children or bemoaning...
Unimportant Verse 14
Between our houses, there is a simple fence - not a chasm, not a wall. Chain-link, waist high, bedecked with sweet-pea and set about with violets. Something we can tend, something to feel good about, something between us other than nothing.
Unimportant Verse 13
Every time I seek to change my life, myself, my love, my name, every time I try and broaden my range in this shitty, all-encompassing game, I hesitate. With every change in my life comes the terror of maybe losing you of maybe being caught in...
Unimportant Verse 12
When a light so far above me shines down, I lose my footing, stop, look around, and for once, see my way lit before me. Through you, I learn how I move. Through you, I see how I act. Through you, I judge myself. When a light so far...
Beneath her coat was a whole identity
Beneath her coat was a whole identity: A subtle form of ideas under soft fur, A constantly shifting mass of meaning... And somehow, she pulled it off. She would go for days without shedding a thing, And then, as if a bottle rolling off a...
Growth
Used to be you and I daily would walk through the fields out back of the house and talk for hours, spilling words and emotions. These walks were our daily devotions to each other over the years. The fields, dotted with ponds, were our space. We...
Fisher
Alv pinned his ears back against his head as he stomped down the length of the block. His boots were too much for the drizzle that the weather offered, but it was that or his threadbare sneakers, and some tiny part of his mind had done the calculation...