Photo by Torbjørn Helgesen on Unsplash For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow . . . —Gerard Manley Hopkins The place under the awning where it hasn’t rained. The seat belts in the taxi all with puzzling or hidden buckles. The daffodils inside my shadow. The glass of melted ice. The spiderweb that […]
Photo by michael weir on Unsplash I look at my childhood & imagine what isn’t there archived blank pages partially erased artifacts we all live in a barter system trading our favorite worst memories I social you a tongue I appeal you a slanted pear orchard throat & we share it gladly I research […]
Photo by Graham Holtshausen on Unsplash After Carl left me for a woman he met buying manure off Craigslist, I put in for an out-of-state letter carrier transfer with the postal service. I wanted a fresh start, a chance to discover something. It didn’t matter what. I wanted to learn something I never would […]
Photo by Emily Levine on Unsplash We had some money and we went to Rome. My husband had never been, and I’d just turned forty. It is not possible for me to write the name I called my husband. I don’t remember our endearments. My husband today—someone else—I call Sweetheart, but I didn’t use that […]
Photo by Trinity Nyguyen on Unsplash how “gracious” means “large” at least with respect to houses and maybe also old or beautiful the first time I was in a house one might say this of it was a suburb of Boston in high school for the day with my friend while her mother taught Saturday […]
Photo by Single.Earth on Unsplash It’s June and I turn and turn my wet leg in sleep, in hopes of making a poultice. There is so much to learn here, in this place where fire does the kind of good violence we need it to. Already I have taken to calling this valley floor peat, […]
Photo by Maël Balland on Unsplash Before there were such small machines, there were augurs plying their trade in every paper. Dear Scorpio, they’d write, the stars are aligned for you this week, but be suspicious of promises of sudden wealth. I spent my dimes and quarters on candy, and was susceptible to flattery. I […]
The Red Flower For Viviano Pérez Pérez Photo by Giulia May The smallest hummingbird will only survive on another island. Two wings of the same bird. I once found my most coveted bed on a rooftop that overlooked a guava tree in the barrio of music. My father’s first word was Spanish when my grandmother […]
The Crows Photo by David Trinks I left out a bowl of rice dressed in violets and honey, unsure if it was offering or temptation. A crow appeared on my kitchen counter and ate it all. The next morning the crow returned with its flock, shades draping the shagbark, all of them chanting their own […]
Sweet Field Anemoia Photo by Ashwini Chaudhary ……………….anemoia (n.) — nostalgia for a time you’ve never known ……….coined by John Koenig in The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows There was, at one time, an empty field. I’m sure of it. Or, was it a forest so jaded that a vine snake’s darting left only a […]