A lump hammer propels me close
to buried root, each head-heavy swing
a blow at resistance. I want to lash
the stubborn vines to scaffolding
so they’ll grow upright, as we want
for our children—as I raised you, my child,
“Linn Junction,” “Midwestern Blues,” and “Dear Capitalism”
My father built the cabin by the river
himself, and built me a treehouse
on the riverbank and two kinds of swings:
one with a tire you sit on and one to hang
on upright. We found a wounded duckling
near the pond, and nursed it back to health.
“How to raise a child who loves herself,” “Blessing for the Prairie Plants,” and “Ode to the Waterwheel”
To raise a child who loves herself,
remove the word “beautiful” from your vocabulary.
Replace it with brave.
Smart.
Creative.
Kind.
Instead of her hair, her eyes, her skin:
Notice her soul.
“The Choosing,” “Raveled,” and “Last Judgment”
Fly from that house
clad in cotton dress & aviator cap
with its cracked leather—you knew you’d need it
someday.
Ride mistral through
a sky casting its greys over a landscape
brown with mud & blonde with barley spikes
bending.
“Can’t lawyer any mawyer,” “a little bit of everything not too much of anything,” and “Friends”
a torture fund
for the poorer:
a rampant righteous dance
themed: taxidermy of piety
so hot do my cheeks burn
in hypocrisy
lost to our lessers
Owning Scars
Bright pink border surrounding a jagged white line right in the middle of her left knee. I cannot help but stare. I never noticed this scar before. Is it new? Looks a bit faded so must be old but no memory of how it got there. Maybe some accident as a kid, something that happened without me. Maybe a fall on some rocks like the ones right here, lichen covered boulders on Mount Timpanogos summit.
Read more.Los Espantos de Parral
Paquita felt the sharp twisting pain in her abdomen and leaned forward on the steering to move into a more comfortable position. She glanced in the rearview mirror catching her baby sister, Sylvia, gazing back. Sylvia’s brow rose, silently inquiring an update.
“I’m fine,” Paquita mumbled, rubbing her side. Her curly, light-brown hair stuck to the sides of her cheeks, pasted with humidity.
The Private War of Lieutenant Colonel Rodrigo Huamán
Lieutenant Colonel Rodrigo Huamán’s first encounter with the Shining Path guerrillas was a lot more complicated than he had ever anticipated when he was being trained to become a soldier for Perú. A policeman had made a desperate call to the military headquarters at Huanta. More than seventy rebels had attacked the police station in the town of Guindas, crying out, “Viva Mao! Viva Presidente Gonzalo! Viva Comrade Carlos!”
Read more.Shaken
Milton pulled his worn, blue bathrobe tight over his chest. He didn’t want one of those young nurse’s aides to see the way his flesh hung over his old bones. Even he thought it was disgusting, and it was his body.
Wheeling his chair up to the TV, Milton grabbed the remote off the Velcro strip that was stuck to the cabinet in hopes that everyone using it would be kind enough to stick it back.
All Alone
On the coldest day in decades, the cloudless sky ocean blue, I was alone, and heartbroken, outside the station on the New York bound platform, in a barrage of minus three degree wind gusts, instead of inside basking in the warmth of the waiting area. Moments ago, a carving wind, slicing through my layers, cut me to the bone.
Read more.Five Interviews
When did I begin to feel so miserably old? Ah, yes. It was exactly one year, three months, and fifteen days ago. It started when I turned eighty years of age, and every muscle and body joint ignited in excruciating pain. It was the moment rheumatoid arthritis began our one-sided courtship. “What won’t hurt today, Satan?” I shout at the top of my lungs each and every morning, defiantly shaking my fist at the devil’s netherworld.
Read more.Chasing Blue Butterflies
With his arms outstretched toward the open window, Dad chuckles like a little boy. I released another one! I clap my hands in support just as a thin ray of golden light shines into my eyes. As I walk over to the shimmering window and peer out through the bronzed dreamy sunlight, I see the front yard of my childhood home.
Read more.Orange Blossoms
—Top of happiness, my dear friend. Your delightful story has been like honey on my heart. It has given me much pleasure to hear it. Please, please. It’s true. Allah-u akbar, God is Great.
It wasn’t often I had the honour of the company of one with a rare provenance such as yours. In fact, you were the most beautiful red chair I had ever seen.
Dancing with Lightning: Chapter 9
Mountains of cumulonimbus assembled in the high altitudes west of the city and scudded overhead as patiently as continental drift throughout the morning. The towering white masses augured heavy convection storms for Denver but ultimately held off losing their power till reaching the eastern plains. Once there, sixty miles off in the afternoon distance, the clouds were illuminated from within by constant electrical activity.
Read more.“arcs of light,” “The Divine Right of Kings,” and “Walk in Balance”
How can I still be sad about ancient pains?
These tidbits of lost connection strewn like bread crumbs
to delineate a path back to the witch or warlock
who cast this spell of forgetfulness
“the better to manipulate you, my dear”
“In the Valley,” “Reflections,” and “A Spat”
I walk north where garlic mustard grows
with heart-shaped leaves,
clusters of tiny white stars.
Their slender stalks border a trail
into the woods
past a brook where the deer drink.
“Appointments,” “Steps,” and “Last Days”
I wait for the next appointment knowing
it will arrive as another scheduled day
where I’ll put my body in a stranger’s hands.
That person in white will study my numbers,
listen to my heart, press fingers into my flesh
“Between Worlds,” “Fly,” and “Undulation”
I never imagined being a mermaid
Other girls talked of curly hair,
seashell bras; all I saw were scales —
Water felt like a second skin to me.
I could glide and swoop, avoid
imagined obstacles at speed.
“Medicine Ball,” “Existential Crisis in the Cereal Aisle,” and “Retirement Home, Room 314”
When I hate myself I reach into photo albums
and pull the child version of me into the present.
I make myself look at that boy
and say the awful things I have said
to the mirror in my mind.
The condemnations rush away
like the refugee raindrops that scatter
“Stone Bottle Balustrade,” “Chelyabinsk-65,” and “Squiz Normcore”
Stripping one
of one’s
memories
the cruelest of outcomes,
by design
or
predetermination
“Sophia’s Wisdom”
the moon will be like the sun
& the sun will be like the seven
who bind up our trauma
& mend the wounds inflicted by our flesh
Daughter of the Hibernian Isle
Among the well-bred and refined ladies of San Francisco, the prevailing opinion was that there could be no better sport than the breach of contract suit filed by Sarah Althea Sharon, née Hill, against Senator William Sharon. Let the men have their boxing-matches, the boys their football games — why, this was entertainment of the highest order, a clash in the greatest rivalry of all, that between the sexes.
Read more.Gigi
I couldn’t sleep that night. I waited for the police to call or show up on our front porch, but they never did. I thought about calling Cecelia’s house, but I didn’t want them to connect me to her, which didn’t make any real sense because everyone knew we were best friends. I’d be one of the first people they’d come to. I watched the sunrise through my window and gave up trying to sleep.
Read more.Blueprint
By the end of the third day, the house, so quiet, too quiet, understood it had been abandoned. Four more flies, proboscises quivering, investigated the garbage pail. Molly no longer controlled the kitchen, would not be wielding the swatter, and without a care in the world, the creatures flitted among the odiferous scraps. They would settle later, raise a family or two, and replace the human family now departed.
Read more.