The Birds

The Birds

  Human beings ought to emulate the birds. Every millisecond on TV is a birdbrained lie. And I love TV very much so I can say it. A soothing mixture, pain and plenty. The average American spends 500 hours per year in disbelief. The rest, in ennui. Once upon a...
Landscape with Borrowed Contours

Landscape with Borrowed Contours

  If you’ve got it, flaunt it, said a t-shirt my mother gave me, but what did I have? Tiny batteries in my breasts, which hummed along, expectant. I did and didn’t want to grow up and into a woman so I tore pages out of Mademoiselle and the monthlies...
Two Poems

Two Poems

    EVER YOU ARE My subject, myself, my object, I too have spent my whole life hungry. Any human contact brings news of me to me. Any information is news. Today I helped a stranger. Wished I was a medic. Everyone would say how good I am that bad. Look at me...
Belemnite

Belemnite

    Red lake of salt, crumbling edge of pus, far border of tender flesh I tread around the bloody eye, daring the old impulse to jump Saturday morning, the wound spills I dream he is in my bed. Disoriented by his smell I can’t remember his name I dip my...
Putting Food By

Putting Food By

  The achingly red Roma tomatoes fill the bleached porcelain sink like the bulbous detritus of summer. The remnants of seed and skin collide and float broken and hollow. The women work, cut, seed, and trim, with tanned and muscled hands: those of sewing,...
The Somnambulist

The Somnambulist

  Past the coffee table, its treacherous corners; around the hushed ottoman; pause in front of the flickering flat screen as if I’d stepped right out of it. My family gapes. Past lamps and ficus, my swerves precise, my balance impeccable. I’m on a mission yet to...