When I am nostalgic for my life, I put on Giving You the Best That I Got. I am floating just above the time-space continuum. I am witnessing the bouquet of possibility. I am glancing at each version of me and you. In one life, I am not a texter. Nearly all of our...
DominiQue Christina Day Two
The Crack
I sigh deeply, from the depths not only my chest, but my soul. I resign myself to the fact that I will be stuck in this house out in the country until he returns with our four grandsons. The pendulum swings wide. Joy for the exuberant energy of four filling these...
Mammary Memories
your arm accidentally touches my breast in the middle of the night in that region between wake and sleep I panic I imagine your memories you touching them them touching you you touching you I re-remember me touching you you touching me him touching me me touching him...
Isopropyl
I found a large half-bottle in the makeshift farm vet kit under the sink. Rationed it, bought another as soon as the blank spots on the store shelves began to fill again. C3H8O: colorless, flammable, disinfecting. An azetrope with water, its boiling point is 176.67...
The History of Skin
What am I but the history of my skin moving through the world, the story of my collisions and contusions? Time inscribed in the error of the flesh. Her name was Svetlana, but she had other secret names. One night she pressed her mouth against my mouth and moved down...
The Moth
It was stuck against our screen porch door. In the low amber light, the wings radiated a brownish-red sheen, glistening in the cold midnight air. It was a moth I’d never seen before, gigantic, unlike others my sister had injected with lethal liquid and displayed open,...
Give and Take
Bulges tremor off skin yoking Dad’s innards with Jello mounds of acidic rage. He carries these parasitic planets on his back like the estranged family who carry the true lineage of his genes. Mom lances the herd, one-by-one, in the bathroom while we hide behind the...
Make Way
The Daughter Forty-five minutes you sit behind the steering wheel. Tears run your face. I talk to you through the closed window. You stare straight ahead. No acknowledgement. Not a nod. Nothing. The kids wait. Your grandchildren. Ten and five years old. Thirsty....
One Room: Basement, the editor
Curled in the southeast corner with thin skin sticking to faux-cheetah acrylic, she crams bits of my manuscript into cracked lips, spitting bits onto cement. An amber bulb, cobwebbed and sickly, swings overhead as she guzzles Merlot I serve her. She dials the phone...
Measure of a Fairy Tale
The last time I heard your feet in shoes early in the morning you were coming to tell me of a change in plans. I needed to get dressed quick somehow I was now the right person to travel with you to Cleveland, to the heart clinic. My father, your constant companion in...
When He Left
When he left It was summer. It was soft exhale of sky and cloudfloat. It was a lemonade glass you rolled on your throat and humid drops of where did he go? Where did he go? It was you should have not stayed in the sun so long, you know how easy you burn. It was a walk...
I’m Right Here
I’m Right Here Wait, Jesus, have you been crying? (…) It’s not even 7 a.m., for Christ’s sake. (…) You better not fucking kill yourself. (…) Look at me! If you love me, you won’t. Think of the kids. They care. (…) Why can’t you just talk to me about it? (…) Okay, so,...
We still kiss to Anita Baker in every timeline.
When I am nostalgic for my life, I put on Giving You the Best That I Got. I am floating just above the time-space continuum. I am witnessing the bouquet of possibility. I am glancing at each version of me and you. In one life, I am not a texter. Nearly all of our...
The Crack
I sigh deeply, from the depths not only my chest, but my soul. I resign myself to the fact that I will be stuck in this house out in the country until he returns with our four grandsons. The pendulum swings wide. Joy for the exuberant energy of four filling these...
Mammary Memories
your arm accidentally touches my breast in the middle of the night in that region between wake and sleep I panic I imagine your memories you touching them them touching you you touching you I re-remember me touching you you touching me him touching me me touching him...
Isopropyl
I found a large half-bottle in the makeshift farm vet kit under the sink. Rationed it, bought another as soon as the blank spots on the store shelves began to fill again. C3H8O: colorless, flammable, disinfecting. An azetrope with water, its boiling point is 176.67...
The History of Skin
What am I but the history of my skin moving through the world, the story of my collisions and contusions? Time inscribed in the error of the flesh. Her name was Svetlana, but she had other secret names. One night she pressed her mouth against my mouth and moved down...
The Moth
It was stuck against our screen porch door. In the low amber light, the wings radiated a brownish-red sheen, glistening in the cold midnight air. It was a moth I’d never seen before, gigantic, unlike others my sister had injected with lethal liquid and displayed open,...
Give and Take
Bulges tremor off skin yoking Dad’s innards with Jello mounds of acidic rage. He carries these parasitic planets on his back like the estranged family who carry the true lineage of his genes. Mom lances the herd, one-by-one, in the bathroom while we hide behind the...
Make Way
The Daughter Forty-five minutes you sit behind the steering wheel. Tears run your face. I talk to you through the closed window. You stare straight ahead. No acknowledgement. Not a nod. Nothing. The kids wait. Your grandchildren. Ten and five years old. Thirsty....
One Room: Basement, the editor
Curled in the southeast corner with thin skin sticking to faux-cheetah acrylic, she crams bits of my manuscript into cracked lips, spitting bits onto cement. An amber bulb, cobwebbed and sickly, swings overhead as she guzzles Merlot I serve her. She dials the phone...
Measure of a Fairy Tale
The last time I heard your feet in shoes early in the morning you were coming to tell me of a change in plans. I needed to get dressed quick somehow I was now the right person to travel with you to Cleveland, to the heart clinic. My father, your constant companion in...
When He Left
When he left It was summer. It was soft exhale of sky and cloudfloat. It was a lemonade glass you rolled on your throat and humid drops of where did he go? Where did he go? It was you should have not stayed in the sun so long, you know how easy you burn. It was a walk...
I’m Right Here
I’m Right Here Wait, Jesus, have you been crying? (…) It’s not even 7 a.m., for Christ’s sake. (…) You better not fucking kill yourself. (…) Look at me! If you love me, you won’t. Think of the kids. They care. (…) Why can’t you just talk to me about it? (…) Okay, so,...