1. Took the medicine, left the dog.
—Zachary Kennedy-Lopez
The tiger hadn’t reacted to the looming finger. Why not? the mother thought, disappointed. Just a snarl. Or swipe of a claw. Not to hurt the boy, of course, but because that’s what tigers did. The mother was pleased the beasts did not act like real beasts, but shouldn’t they at least have the instinct to protect themselves?
Read MoreI crawl in because the other boys crawl out.
Mum doesn’t remember where the remote controller is. She forgets
things mostly: how God keeps slipping from in between her thighs—
Read More1
A place where I stand and think, If the race war pops off it’s me and my half-Mexican friend against these 700 cowboys.
Read MoreI’m ready for all of us to retire elitist ideas about poetry. Poetry is for people who go to Wendy’s. Poetry is for people who work at Wendy’s. Poetry is for people who sleep in the corner of the parking lot outside of Wendy’s. Poetry can be for special occasions, yes, but only because special occasions fall on days ending in y.
Read MoreI wake before sunrise and make a torch of it
shoving the dog in the boot of the car
pissed-on rope, cracked cagoule, there is no flask
for tea, just me and my red-rush of will
Women regret, I hope, their trust.
Sit down, my children, for me. I want it. I've got to do it.
Trust is an overnight process. For 10 years I call more
people, I hurt all of them.
Wednesday was quiet, for the most part. During lunch Jerry wondered if we might have a Clear Day (CD). It’s been nearly a year and a half since we had a CD. Sam, who sits in the Productivity Stall behind me, heard us talking and wanted to start placing bets. I didn’t think it was a good bet since a CD is so rare now. Sam is always trying to predict how things turn out. I stayed out of it.
Read MoreHow about: stay off my plate,
unless you plan your comments equally.
Better yet, comment on your food
and let the office stand around to judge you.
He says I have striking eyes and he’s staying in a condo behind the Gillette building. I have normal eyes. Of medium size and average color. The shade of slush. So he lacks imagination. That’s fine.
Read MoreShe looked at the soapy water and up and there was the bear, walking along the row of arborvitaes at the edge of their yard. He took a moment to register as a bear and by then was through the trees, like walking through a wall. That was all—a few seconds of his ambling. If she’d been scrubbing a dish, he wouldn’t exist.
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Everything out here is circular
and even death for a split second is sated. So we eat
drugs like peppermints while the marble oceans
of our skin become a litany you can memorize
with two fingers and an open-jawed religion. We raze
a dog’s routine by going on permanent vacation.
When Met Life executives
invited future social workers
from the Seven Sisters colleges
to their observation tower,
the tallest at the time, “to see
the tenements and the task ahead,”
they had other ideas in mind.
A woman left a note on the front door of my house with wording pretty similar to what I use in the story. I found it so strange and creepy and I knew I wanted to do something with it but I couldn’t find my way in. I had several stops and starts and the document just hibernated in my drafts for about a year.
Read MoreThere aren’t many examples in the family archives. We have that famous photo of Great Aunt BoDean, circa 1867, seated behind a wooden shack with ranch hands lined up on the other side, holding empty round plates. They’re missing their pie, for which she was famous. Her face is hard to read in the blurry photo. We’re just guessing it was a case of seclusion.
Read MoreI wield a shovel with the proper weight to it.
I slice the snowy thoughts out of mind.
