Bildungsroman: Imbibing I would eat, but she would drink cod liver oil—rancid sea stank, fire- swamp sharp over my pancakes, my pbjs, my faith that people put good things in their bodies, not lich elixir: the dank desiccating darkness of that vile vial. And she drank and hunched further, got slower and sadder. Drank because
Snowpocalypse, January 2006 Mostly, I remember what happened after he left for good. The snowstorm, dubbed “snowpocalypse” by everyone paying attention to the weather reports’ frenzied warnings, had dumped what looked like entire bags of flour over everything. The super had left two good shovels, a jug of cat litter, and some stray scraps of
Lament of a Failed Villanelle I’m part villanelle always looping around,repeating myself. I move forward in fitsand starts, get caught in the unsteady rhythmof one-step-forward-two-steps-back. Withoutthe sexy sway of a cha-cha-cha ora tango’s grace. When I tell a story,I sashay around the facts, take listenerson a long promenade, rehashing for emphasis,sometimes forget where I’m going.No
I’m unfit to be a wife again I long to close my eyes / find an intimate darkness / to enhance feeling / one of those hugs myhusband was famous for / all enveloping / with tenderness / I stand in the kitchen / talk to him eachmorning / sipping my coffee / though he’s
Where I Live gangster saxophonesteam and spit valvenighttimealways nighttimein this neighborhoodof permanently puddled streetstime lapse scaffoldingincidental crossing islandsnowherein this irregular geometryof pedestrian clotted grated sidewalksrattling trucks and doppler sirensis it ever quietit’s how we know all’s wellor as well as things get down herewhere we step out on ourfire escapesto scan the street belowand eavesdrop
Daydream At the money deliI ordered a quarter pound of twenties,lean.The deli guy wrapped the bills neatlyin wax paperand I stepped to the registerwhere the cashier asked mehow I wanted to pay.I was stumped,so I shuffled a soft-shoeand sang When You’re Smiling.The cashier clapped,mildly amused.“Very nice,” she said,“but that’s an old songand these are new
Joy! My daddy always swore it was true,and, I guess, a 14-year-old boy would notice.In Montgomery, Alabama, on hearing the news on VJ Dayspontaneous dancing broke out in the streets.After selling all his newspapers,he spied three nude young women.No mad Gorgons turning celebratory jitterbuggers to stone,no matron Fates spinning yarn,but flesh-and-blood, young American womanhoodfull-bodied with
Zip Line Tour Costa Rica We shed our rigging, our hardhats and belt clips, climb into the van to ride back to the beach hotel, palm trees and piña coladas. Zip-lining bonded us, the two grandmas, while younger tourists cheered as we hooked up our harnesses to zing through rainforest canopy. I try small talk—Do
Burglary at the Garden Inn Neither of us thought that broken windows and swear wordswere the same or that jigsaw puzzles and shattered glasscould switch pieces.We didn’t know that police reports and security cameraswere necessary, or that shop-vacs and brooms could gatherscattered shards into sparkling confetti.Neither of us thought that a cardboard strip coveredby a
Defensible Space A buffer between a structure and its surroundings She said the sky is full of wildfire smoke He said close the windows seal the cracks with masking tape She said there’s a thin layer of ash on the picnic table He said the rain will take care of it She said the sky
