Latest Works
The Stillness on West 144th Street
The way home from Sally’s reeks with garbage, piss, and sweet rot pushing up through the sidewalk. I’m not much better. Hair stringy with grease, breath sour from ginger beer,…
Two Friends Paint the Living Room Pool-Bottom Blue
He knows—of course he knows—that we’re breaking the lease agreement. He pretends to be stupid and I pretend to be innocent and our rollers suck and ooze.
The Shoe Store
If you can help a man of sixty-plus years shop for Dockers, do. If you can help a suburban mom in athleisure, Windex the mirrors. The moms will leave you…
A Cheerleader Orders a Burger
She wants her uniform to catalyze her potential and not be the summation.
The meek shall inherit the earth
A woman dies in Palermo. Thofania has poisoned her husband, and others, but her name gathers flies. It is her goddaughter’s that drips cold, colorless, into folklore. Giulia sells cosmetics.…
How Many Snouts
an adaptation of Hecuba & Hecate If I had been weaving when the ghost came for my daughter, I might have tangled him in my threads and pushed him up…
Bites, Jan.
The news was doing animal videos, so Jan decided to make pancakes. They came off golden-brown, and the humidity was low enough to open the front door and let a…
Wakers
edited from “The Prophet Before” (Jan 2021) LUCIFER God was alone in His knowledge. He carved the spheres of the universe and deserved something all Himself. While he birthed all…
The Academic
Medieval medicine take up a whole shelf. Splendid. Not one, single book can give you a comprehensive rundown. Twenty will tell you the same thing, slightly rephrased, so you’ll…
The Dog Queen
an adaptation of Hecuba & Hecate The dog made a racket in the brush. She was not used to hunting. It annoyed the other predators, who found her stomping about…
Blue House
They added stone lions on either side of the driveway and paved over the pit. Ladders went up. The girl started taking side streets when errands brought her through the…
Fly on the Chalkboard
I came to learn, please don’t kill me. I can go away until the lecture is over, if you leave the diagrams. I can study them by the light of…
Excellence in the Workplace
Congratulations! Your contributions to the company have propelled us to new heights and new frontiers, and if you can pardon the mixed metaphors, we would be delighted if you took…
The Unexpected
“Expect the unexpected,” Mom said afterward. Your side had two lanes. You occupied the right. Down the road, to the left, a feeder street fed into yours. It had a…
Io
The fly chased her to the delta. The moon, that rhyme, was sung many years later by children who didn’t know her. If she knew them she might lesson them…
Painkillers
“Okay or Painless?” He handed my questionnaire back. The pen chained to the clipboard resembled a chrysalis, one of the silver ones that look dead until the pupa splits it.…
The Judgment
I waited by the door to watch the light below the crack divide in two, then three…
Maddy & Ann
Ours was the blue house on Donnelly. We weren’t the kind for cucumber & dill. It was takeout, with Ann’s hours, or fish sticks. We tried to be good, responsible…
The Bent Ones
* * * I won’t win your understanding. I don’t care to. Mark my horrors and tell your children of them. See if they mind you better. See if they…
Creatures of Habit
Toast was burnt. It flaked over the eggs, all milk and cheese, the way he liked. His fork scratched the ruins while the locals bristled. They were prone to distrust…
Kill Yourself.
It starts as a joke, chides the schoolmarm voice in your head. Her hands smell of salad dressing and are colder than ice. You learned in Health that women’s digits…
Week’s End
Bursts of tissue paper and nerves, I lean over and hope you will stay awhile in the moments. I want to be close, if not attached, while the party goes…
Imaginings
No need to be first, no care for right, I ask the privilege of knowing you unlike anyone has. Your sanctum for mine. Your thoughts in real time, and a…
From the Null
We braced for the fall into blue majesty, dive-bombing and splinters, but were left sunning our backs over the ozone layer. Before we felt the burn we turned to vapor.…
After-Christmas Laundry
Blue detergent on a velvet dress that may or may not survive even the gentle cycle— I’m tired of babying clothes. But I have nothing else to worry about. No…
The Mountain
Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso— mountains and meridians carve the dozens of degrees of mediocrity. Even in the mouth of the firedrake, which fogs the night with its hunger, there’s an up…
Let’s not talk of love
The cold nights on the town, nose running once inside, experimenting whose place will feel like home the fastest. Let’s not rake those coals. But “let’s not,” as it happens,…
The humbling
I will not be humbled, unless by morning mass or Mother’s platitudes over the stove. Howl and vie, you will not have the privilege of my shame. My arms are…
Ismene
I never dreamed to wear the myrtle crown. She did, and ran circles under the storm clouds. Smite me, she sang, while I helped Mother weave. We were making the…
You & the beast & I
The beast is as surprised to be called as you are it wags its tail. Why? Neither can pretend polite society. You were made for this dance: your words, its…
I put a spell on you
Darken the page and fill the pot, one in hope, the other punishment, just to see desire fall to pieces— I spy with my witch’s eye a driver gunning uphill…
Ghost Bride
Time to learn and time to lapse. It grows harder the longer without. All that remains is curiosity for— not the touch itself, but the reaction. To feel your hairs…
Blue Morning Room
I figure there are better things to do than scroll. It’s 6:16. The room is blue, the cat is up, and rain is ringing the fire escape. I went out…
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