We Choose This She’s slurring again, asking the same questions as lastnight, the same ones answered this morning. At times, when I’ve bought the ticket and need the ride, this infinite loop is a relief—cork, pour, smoke, pour again, smoke, smoke smoke, cork, pour,...
Aimee Parkison
Baja Roads PartIII
I caught a glimmer of blue on the eastern horizon, just a thin strip, hovering above desert brown. I called to the back of the van, "Look kids, we can see the water.” I heard them scramble up on our wooden storage cabinets to look out the window. It was the northern...
The Knowledge of Unknowing
(I struggled with the prompts, then went with this) Well over fifty relatives gather. Been a long time since the man walks into a room of this branch of his family. A withholding of sorts, mostly absent 36 years. The man carries a weight that he does not share....
Three Flashes
Hand Rest When I ask, “Who did this to you?” her eyes barely bloom, veiled as they are, in bleak weather, no different than a smear of confused crows. When I start, “Honey—" she snaps back, “Fucking don’t call me that anymore.” When I reach for her hand across the...
East Texas cotton blues
A hundred pounds is too much to pull for a little boy ––Lightning’ Hopkins he’d come up from the soil of a promise undelivered dream deferred come up on red-soil piney woods East Texas skinny hard scrabble, hard toil,...
Not a Prayer & The Becoming
Not a Prayer Is there a god within my hands, is there one behind my eyes, is there, perhaps, a god hidden between my thighs? No, and no, and no. Was there a god when my sister died, was there one for my...
night looms blues
I. passages barred narrowed like slaughterhouse chutes pinpoint paranoia bleeds staining & paralyzing into indecision an anxious buddha whispering don’t try over & over again fretfully inactive II. stacking seconds like...
Trapped in a World That Looks Like it Doesn’t Even Exist
The prison sits behind the apple orchard, bright curlicues of razor wire peeking through the leaves. It gives me a bad feeling but I have so many bad feelings and dark circles under my eyes. You don’t look so good, say my parents, friends, bus drivers, teachers, and...
How a Nuclear Accident Can Melt a Mixtape in Verona in 1986
Marco is the coolest boy in school. He wears a bomber jacket he bought on holiday in Los Angeles, and his hair is as shiny as Michael J. Fox's. When I grow up, I will marry Marco. That is unless I marry Michael J. Fox first.I bump into Marco at the library after...
Shotgun Wedding
~ after Persephone, Helen Lundeberg, 1950 The earth shivers and births a crack that fingers its way towards her toes. She realizes she hasn’t much time. Marry me, she says to the sky. Marry me, to the soil. To the rain, she gives welcome. To the stars, she offers a...