Here it was, the opportunity of a lifetime to finally have everything that I wanted. No more of the desperate longing to look like the images I saw on Instagram. My self-doubt would be gone, replaced by an inner confidence that only I would know about. I had done everything possible on my own to pass and fit into what society deemed presentable but had always come up short. This long- awaited advantage would even things out for me and save me years of wasted time and money. So when it was my turn to order, I didn’t berate myself.

Towards the end of spring, when the air is still cold and bites at your cheeks, and a thick blanket of mist covers the ground, a large black truck approaches a small Danish town. When it reaches the town limit, it stops and a man jumps out. He’s in his forties, wearing a creased, high-end suit that looks as though he has slept in it. His hair, dark and sprinkled with gray, stands up from the back of his head like on a baby heavy with sleep. He runs his hands through it as he squints at the bright morning sun, which is beginning to penetrate the clouds. Then he waves at the truck driver, shuts the door, and turns to face the town.

Muriel decided to catalog the desiccated remains herself. Her heart raced. Her fingers tingled. Electric lanterns placed every few feet illuminated the cave. Layers of dust and the neglect of time conspired to make it all but unrecognizable. Was it female or male? From when? She studied it, looking for signs. So much anticipation. So much hanging in the balance. Her doctoral students and undergraduates gathered, hushed and eager. The small team of researchers, on the twenty-ninth day of a thirty-five-day dig, had made little progress until Guillermo, a first-timer, found what looked to be a canvas jacket from the First Common Era baked into the wall of the dry Nevada desert cave.

The ventilator whirred mechanically, patients’ chests rising as the oxygen pumped through their lungs. Donna stood by the man she had seen intubated hours beforehand. His breath at times steadying momentarily was a forced gasping rattle. She wondered who he was.
A middle-aged man with greying hairs amongst patchy brown. Quite possibly handsome, aside from the current predicament. His youthful face now drained from the sensation of drowning. He was in the throes of acute respiratory distress syndrome, as a result of the virus. Watching him, Donna’s own breath belaboured beneath her mask.

The rumors ever forever true
our tombs and fate entwine
the looming absinthe pearl
we’re hardwired nigh plagued
the minds of the masses now jaded
plugging the hole as crevices swirl
one day we’ll displace
likened to lemmings to gorges

Running out of ourselves urgent
anxious we were spirits of some kind
ghoulish forgotten ones

living in half-light we could barely peep in
and never found ourselves in photographs

we found nothing made by our own hands

“Talk to me!” it’s the woman in the dentist’s waiting room,
in a pre-silenced state.
“If you like couscous, how d’ you prepare it?
Are you following the Russian news?
Do you personally know anyone who had COVID?
What’s your stand on DNC, BLM?
Speak your mind!”

“I thought of you last night,” Professor H says nonchalantly, studying me as I drape my houndstooth printed coat over his office loveseat. A Tetris of stacked papers, folders, and CDs make sitting on said loveseat impossible. Except for that one time when he cleared it off so I could sleep while he worked on his book about Schumann and Brahms. Even after the innumerable hours we’ve prized in this office, I still don’t always know how to read his particular kind of strange. Taking my usual seat across from H, I feel a flash self-consciousness, wanting to hide the shape of my body.

Classic rock crackles around a half-lit room,
scent of sweat exhaled by thick cotton

work shirts, denim salted with cigarette breath.
The bar’s low lights shiver on the skin

of his black leather coat. I linger
on the small god tapping at his chest.

Just as a person may have unexpected contradictions to his temperament, two very different men can each mirror an individual they know well. My oldest sibling told me he sees himself as being a lot like our mother. It’s not that I didn’t believe him, I simply thought I was the one who wore the analogous traits. Since my brother and I practically live opposing lives, I hadn’t thought we both could carry on Mom’s personality. Mom died in 2014.

All the salt in the world comes from the sea.
That’s why we tunnel under the Great Lakes,
To chip away a seabed that now flakes
Beneath hydraulic steel machinery.
That’s why our salty tears eternally
Burn our clenched eyes.

I found Dad’s typewritten manuscript in his filing cabinet three days after his funeral. It lay flat and about an inch thick in a 9×12 envelope. The flap had been sealed, the metal clasp spread open. It was in a drawer that also contained insurance documents, the title to his car, and his honorable discharge certificate. The envelope had my name on it, written in copperplate pencil.

Magic will not save us.

Still
when you dream
you’re in Vegas
with your ex
doesn’t that mean
life’s a gamble?

Still

Christmas break arrived, and I elected to stay in the city. Without any school or family obligations, I could explore the landscapes of Gotham, a student on furlough, looking for random adventures flowing with women and rivers of beer. Nebraska was gone—God knows where—and I had the room to myself, sleeping at any hour, traipsing naked if I wanted. I could have women without any concern for Nebraska’s rights to his space.

At the entrance of the yurt, Larry pulls a large group of keys from his pocket; one key for the door of the yurt, one to the gate above the entrance of the lava cave, one for the lightbox, one for Tom’s mansion, one for his car, and one for his bike lock. He’s always loved the perfect circle of the yurt. There are no hidden corners, no set-aside spaces, everything can be taken in, in one sweeping look…

Jimmy is proud to have lettered in basketball. But he has come to think of his Saint Ambrose high-school varsity jacket as a private and public symbol of his life. It is a sort of Scarlet Letter of taint and shame for being sexually abused as a child and a bold blue A rating from the Health Department like at the zoo food stand where he works for appearing safe and clean.

Big Tiny and Polly owned a neighborhood grocery store with two Conoco pumps out front and rarely more than three customers at a time inside. No TV or radio played in the background, no beer or cigarettes sold, and they didn’t bother with a cash register. A narrow counter ran from the front window almost to the back door, two aisles opened perpendicular to the counter, and shelves lined the walls. Other than a well-stocked cold drink box and an old Hotpoint refrigerator filled with dairy products, that was it. I worked as the store’s only employee in the summer of 1963, when I was thirteen and secretly held Cassius Clay as my hero.

I deserted a place labeled as a home,
with outlets popping out from their cables,
an oven that I needed to light manually,
and a floral couch that creaked no matter the weight put onto it.
I still have that picture of you resting softly,
sinking into the cushions,
with a long tear at the top

The naval admiral’s shallow body
Is smaller than I imagined
Underwater
In the nucleus of a nuclear submarine
Elusive to then Soviet fish spawning
On the sides of a metal ship

Late August bears canicular days.
Vertical rays beat down.
My head bends forward,
seeking the shade of my own shadow.
Once luminous eyes now fading,
Fight off the unequaled glare of the most radiant star.

Bubble rings like misplaced
angel halos arise within
my teardrop from tiny
scuba divers the size
of pinpricks swimming
about aimlessly with salt
coating their masks,
and high on painkillers.

There is an indigo ripple in my eye,
sending me backwards through time
on cresting waves that roll into themselves
Tightened by their energy,
these droplets form ropes
that flay my memory

The track meet ended late in the afternoon that day. She and a handful of her teammates in victory blue track uniforms gathered around the front of the high school waiting for their rides. She was fourteen, a freshman. She didn’t know then that she would be the last one left.
A steady stream of cars, turning off the well-traveled frontage road, rushed up the hill and into the U-shaped driveway to pick up their athletes. One by one, they went home with their parents. Gradually, daylight faded and the adjacent parking lot for administrators, teachers, and seniors emptied.

Where I sit is not my chair
but on my bones stacked up my back.
The me is from shoulders down for air,
chin up for sight and speech.
Though toes curl the chair legs
for balance, my feeling is, has always
been, that life is in my hands.