

New Territories
Callie landed just after eleven o’clock in the morning. Immigration was easy—the guy glanced at her picture and grinned. Her bag came out third. She had nothing to declare...


The Barber Shop
Every day, at nine in the morning, Mr. Ghosh got his mustache trimmed while waiting for things to happen. Betel juice dripped from one side of his paan-stained lips, his backside comfortably lodged on a rickety chair in the middle of the busy pavement...


Customer Review of Half-Day Lajes Air Base Historic Sightseeing Tour
Five Stars—Excellent Tour and driver/guide
The road took us into the island where
we came across Victory. He held
a pointed staff and left footprints long
and vehicular. Victory spoke very good
English and heaved like...


Wilding
wine why my tastes tonight run
more for rye or whisky
my throat demands that burn fire
water which helps me forget my
world
wines for therapy not for forgetting
a night from wine put this mark upon
me
she pushed a cart across the street
from kohlmans liquor store on
seventh and dell...


Smoke Break
So I left Lady for good then got off the bus. It felt right, leaving Lady Prananda. Plus I thought no way sadness is not not not going to happen to this girl right here so I dropped her for good, my supposed best friend, paid fifty cents and jumped off at fucking Freeport...


Past Life
Before my mother, there had been another woman, Britannia, whom my father loved and married when they were both in their twenties. After a brief courthouse ceremony with three friends as witnesses, they moved into a mobile home in a trailer park called Fox Meadows...


things you should know
I should throw it away. Nubbed and frayed
from all the cycles. The thrashing and the tumbling.
This shabby robe that robs the dignity of my undressing.
This effigy that hangs on tatty sleeves. These droopy pockets
where I store the balled-up tissues...


Untitled Xerox Cut-Out (Squeaky Fromme/Gerald Ford) 1993-94
Printed paper with paper clips and
Pencil on paper in artist’s frame
Cady Noland
American, born 1956
The Museum of Modern Art, New York City
Squeaky said she was serious but also having fun...


Severe Fish
When planning a menu of prison meals, it’s parts and labor. The parts are the ingredients; they have to be beyond cheap, available in great quantity, and built for simplicity. Which leads to the labor. A cheerless lot, the fewest number of steps...


My Deal
“You’re not breathing,” my mother said. A voice coach who teaches Suits and Baby MBAs how to speak in public, she’s an expert on the way nerves shut down air intake.
I couldn’t tell her that at that moment, seeing Claire’s eyes in hers...


Maybe
I was at my girlfriend’s when she got a call from a friend whose car had run out of gas, and this friend wanted Katie—that’s my girlfriend—to—and because her friend was pretty much shouting through the phone, I quote—“Grab a gas can and get your butt...


Decision Tree
Which pickle to pick
is not fit for childish
deliberations,
especially when pecks
of pickles have picked
this child and that and their
mamas and daddies and
their whole generations.
Of the pickles you're in:
which outs to battle for,
which battles to pack for...


Post
After Grandma died my sister said, We need to send Uncle Larry cards, keep him happy, and I said, I don’t think that he was ever happy and she said, We should all send him cards even just postcards and I said, That’s sweet but I’m going to go in a different...


Toxic Accomplice
Beyond the headline-grabbing accomplishments in grotesquerie, he is most vividly known for his habit of so fondly fondling his shotgun while his femme du jour gave him head, finally squeezing the trigger with relish at the precise moment his so-called swimming demons shot into her...


The Man Who Shot the Moon
The inside of the car is dark. Aspen trees with their white bodies flash by the passenger window. They frighten you, but you don’t tell your father whose smells of sweat, cigarettes, and whiskey you’ve come to find comforting. He’s a strong man...


Being a Woman
Pure revenge proves
hard to come by—
you have to take
so much into account!
Barely have you cursed
the thieves when you
wish their families
fed, because what do we
know of their story?
So I reserve it for
those who probably
couldn’t even fold
these origami boxes
I am stringing for
a friend...


These Thoughts Became Cages
Back when I was
young and dumb, I
never thought that
I’d grow old and
clueless, writing
my own damn eulogy,
one poem at a time
to the tune of an
unsung song about
all of the women,
good times and
great ideas that I
never had, a legacy
built with...


A Scared Fag in Jail
I mean prison. I enter the cell
and a fist flies through the dark
and slices wide my lip. I look as my
kiss streams from the wound:
a fight to the death, if
this isn’t about sex: about who’s trapped
and smashed into like a crowbar inside a clay bust...


Flying
The pill was so small she couldn’t feel it in her hand, could barely feel it in her mouth as she looked out the window above her bed. If she had struck the sky that day, she was sure it would ring, so clear was it, so blue was it.
She hadn’t heard from Staz...


Teapot Summer
Birthdays I remember the teapot summer. Thanks to Brenda I couldn’t forget if I wanted. I remember the day we found it I was strutting the center line on Main like a lunatic. Big-shouldered, daring cars to get past me. Drivers honked and flipped me off...


Show Biz
i was 9 when jackie chan slid into a taxicab
in LA, kids stared into the projected
screen me too, noon hot as hell
mosquitoes buzzing none of the adults
are impressed us swatting air
with exposed palms no
where to hide. who fights lethal
flies this way?...