I look to my left, towards my neighbor on the shore. He’s a writer I recognize from the mainland, the author of Abuelita’s Ashes. It was well received, shortlisted for a few awards. He sees me. “Negrito! No pens, no paper. That’s the real punishment!”...

It’d been almost ten years since Officer Burrow—now Sergeant—arrested me for simple battery and underage consumption. I was seventeen and already an alcoholic, already a pimple-faced delinquent held together by a rage that would take decades to untangle...

New lamb, slick with amniotic fluid Clings to her old world She can’t bear the loss of that perfect roundness, of her delicate, self-sustaining planet...

that house wasnt theirs they just decorated the children brought field flowers chilling hands in water before work had no one done that none would have known the difference wont...

For years we let him take hold of the table and complain all those rapid-stream target-lists until the habit was scratched in. Once in a while after this harrow we speculated that he pleasured in such knots, in these barbs...

Exiting at our bus stop she smart-stepped past me as if unaware of my existence. I can’t say I wasn’t hurt a touch, though I do understand that we are not our best selves on the outside. And we should be judged only at our best. I suspect she would agree with that sentiment...

It was the summer before college began, that magical summer of no responsibilities and no directions, when I went hiking up a mountain with Nina. I was fond of neither hiking nor mountains, but she was fond of both, so there I was, climbing stairs amidst a stream of people, panting, sweating, complaining...

Disenchantment wheelspinning in the shallow, silent foam of a french vanilla. Pain in the flick of a sugar packet. Alone, here, in its chemical aftermath: teeth sticky, mouth grey, and tongue on fire...

The night Lucia died, David and I were screaming at each other. She came downstairs complaining of a fever, and we stopped long enough to put her to bed. Then we kept on fighting until David threw an armchair out the window...

My father never told me. I never told my son, though I know that tug. But he has told his children...

He could’ve chosen dragons, animation, action. He could’ve found art, a heart- warming tale in indecipherable indie cinema, frame by frame...

The first thing you learn growing up near the glades is that stillness is a kind of power. Not quiet. Not hiding. Just the stillness of an alligator, belly pressed into the mud, eyes watching without ever blinking...

I saw him over Alice’s shoulder while she was sitting at my kitchen table talking about her lawn. A young guy in my garden, track suit and ponytail, no-one I knew...

They had a warrant. I was suspected of lying, not only in the poems, but about the poems: I had said they were available when they weren’t...

when I tell them I saw a parade of dead children led by the antler man in his baggy suit...

the only silver lining of bigoted legislation is that now whenever your friends walk anywhere at a reasonable pace you can call them trans athletes and pretend to be scandalized...

Watched pots never boil. True love conquers all. The truth will out...

I took the torn lace outside, dropped it in a pot by the train station and looking back saw it waving at me and knew it will bloom again, if not for me, for someone else or the boy...

In the tooth, a new language becomes long gone. Emily works & lightning follows. The revolution squirms & we bring it to bed with us...

I only go for runs during holiday breaks. Thanksgiving, Christmas, when I’m out of the city. When only two traffic lights can slow me down...