It was the late 1970s and I sat so young and gullible while a moderator caught a glimpse of my sorrow mirrored in the reflection of his warm brown eyes as I listened intently to words of mass emotional destruction. I wanted to sort out grief and identity issues, and so I enlisted in a weekend of minimal bathroom breaks, minimal sleep, and meditative moments where I traversed the galaxies into my own creative process.

I went to the hospital first thing on a Wednesday morning because I knew I was dying. I called and called and had to wait and that was the earliest I could come. I told Doctor Simon that, and he did not look up at me because he probably did not know how to tell me that, yes, I was in fact dying, and at a faster rate than most of the schleps that came into his office every day.

One June day of my freshman year/ninth grade, in 1985, I needed a break from studying. My mother suggested we go out for ice cream to Tajrish Circle. Tajrish, a shopping area on the skirt of the mountains in the northern part of Tehran, was a favorite place for my mother and me to wander, especially for window shopping and mouthwatering snacks. My father disagreed.

I’m sitting in my grandmother’s backyard, lying in the sun on a lounge chair. Tears fill my eyes, and soon I’m sobbing. At times I justify my crying at everything, saying that sensitive people are the best kind of people, but at other times, like now, I do not justify it. I know that I am behaving like a fool.

As he lay dying, Bug Boy remembered the first spider, the Argiope Aurantia, curled up against the glass of the Ragu jar that his father pulled from the freezer. Of course, no one called him Bug Boy then, and he didn’t have his thick-framed glasses with the coke-bottle lenses. Both the name and the glasses were years away on that summer day with the sun’s rays beaming through the clear panes of his family’s patio doors. He was only Todd Olden then. Not Bug Boy. Not a delinquent. Not a dropout. Not a user. Not a murderer.

A blast of humid air swarmed Mallory’s head as he bent over his pedalboard. Sweat dripped down his neck, saturating the collar of his black T-shirt. The temperature inside the club was at least a hundred. The club staff had yet to turn on large fans on each side of the stage, around the seating area, and by the bar. The air conditioning was broken. Two weeks of ninety plus degree days had overpowered it, the manager told him. So unusual for Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in June. The repair crew was on their way; with any luck they would be able to fix the problem before the show, but there were no guarantees. It was just Mallory’s bad luck to be there on this particular day.

MISSING: A teenaged girl with lanky blonde hair and a sunburst tattoo on her cheek.
The holographic posters, brighter than day itself, lit up the air on every block of Main Street. They were the first thing Rags Goldner noticed as she and her partner Flint Sten turned onto the street.
The girl’s name was Effie, and she was sixteen.

A red rotary beacon was mounted over the door to the communications room. In all his days at the Marne Kaserne, he had never seen it illuminated. It was never supposed to be. If that lamp was illuminated, it meant that the Telex machines had urgent messages. Even when they were running a com drill that was supposed to mimic an actual situation, they never used the lamp. When the reflector inside the red, plastic dome began rotating, no one paid much attention. Then the light came on.

My cousins and I bunk in the impromptu nursery
cribs crowded together with a sewing machine
and drapery fabrics and unfinished curtains
near the sunset bedroom originally Olive Plant’s,
across from the Roosevelt room and the guest bath
white porcelain tile, needle surround shower, fixtures of brass.

Three chains:
The first hanging in the hall
Just within reach, but
High enough not to disturb traffic through the short hallway

when i was eighteen
i lost sensation
in my cheeks. it was only
years later, once i felt the
slightest tingling
return to that same skin
that i let myself mourn
its absence (easier to numb
with positivity and denial
than to recount
the beauty and
brokenness
that led to its loss).

SHIRT
A favorite blue shirt wears my loyalty.
Beside –
hangs a pima cotton. Fine stitch
for my affection.
GLOVE
When young, I wore a glove of wonder
snug to my hand.
Held with fame of little round stars
falling in day.

my skin is a lead bodysuit
and other than the hope
that it might crush me one day
it hides my vibrating bones
so that I am the only one
that feels them shaking
inside of me

If I had an amazing tool
it would be a decoder ring
straight from my cereal box
that would morph into a briefcase,
when I pressed a button
into the hand tooled leather satchel.

“I owe it all to Father Justus,” I muttered.
“Boys Town, 1938 …” answered Aeneas, my roommate. Aeneas was already fully dressed. Prep school blazer, snap-on bow tie, slacks and polished shoes were all in order. He sat at his desk, his back to me, no doubt working on some extra credit physics assignment. He looked up briefly and continued, “… but Mickey Rooney owed it all to Father Flanagan.”

It’s a buzz and a bump. Etta laid her head back on a torn seat cushion.
And a flip and a thump.
No air conditioning in the truck cab meant duct tape stuck to her neck in the heat. Tang. She was almost… The phrase began but she couldn’t end it. Twang. Where was she?

When I learned at my high school reunion that Mr. Skar had died, I felt relieved, almost giddy. Though not still musically inclined, I could’ve played a beautiful song—call it an ode to joy—to celebrate his death.

I was shocked at my reaction. Despite the decade-plus of recovery from addiction I had put together and all the therapy I’d done, it was apparent how much of my hatred of perpetrating men I’d put on Skar,

You probably know about the violence that struck Charlottesville, Virginia, on August 12, 2017. Demonstrators from thirty-five states rallied in Lee Park to protest the removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee, Commander of the Confederate Army. I saw a lot of what happened that day.

Kate had calculated that meeting the presidential carriage as it pulled up the drive at Edgewood would serve her interest, but that did not deprive the gesture of its heartfelt quality. The carriage had been specially made in New York. It was dark green in color, Arthur’s favorite, with that hue presenting the central theme on the exterior paint and the interior upholstery, trimmed in morocco and cloth.

Daniel remembered fishing with his father just four months earlier at a small lake near the Czech border. It had been a tradition for years, but Daniel knew now that it couldn´t continue. His father had never been a patient man, but he possessed a strong attention to detail, which only grew stronger over the years. Making sure the fishing pole had no scratches, ensuring that the line wasn´t about to wear out. And worms, always a full box of writhing earthworms.

“Four bronzes,” I say before the man can even ask.
He lifts up a large striped fish off my makeshift table, inspects it and asks, “You gut and clean this, boy?”
I nod once.
“It’s well done. You been doing this long?”
“My father says I could gut a fish before I could walk.”

He was no longer alive; and for his oldest child, recollections of the words that had been spoken (and the thoughts that had been thought) at the funeral a few years before were becoming less distinct as they became more distant. As the anniversary of his father’s passing neared, Lee was once again regretting that he had more or less “squandered” the few opportunities for memorable communication that had presented themselves during the last year or so of his father’s life –

An earwig slithers across the little black plastic air-conditioning vent. I examine this earwig with intention as Father drives. I at once want and want not to touch it.
I do not like how Father drives the van. I find he is too slow the majority of the time, and then in little unpredictable bursts, too fast. Father is not prone to rage, but behind the wheel he is a different version of himself. Docile, with a chance of acrimony.

Sarah jerked awake on the couch, the dream still swimming in her mind. Or was it a visitation? Where was she? She looked around, face damp with sweat. Of course…long underwear, down sleeping bag, heat on full blast. Minnesota. She sat up and turned on the lamp, shook her head. Another dream about Esther. Every night since she’d died.