1984. Shirtless with rivulets of sweat cascading down your hairy chest as you mow the lawn. Sporting aviator sunglasses and a patriotic red and white bandana.
Issue Forty-One
The Topography of New Territories
Outside a note that isn’t musical egresses a calligraphy-inspired beak. Inside I am unspooling while standing barefoot on a hardwood floor.
Undertow
It was the summer and I remember the dry heat of silence. She’s gone. The room a vacuum. Eyes looking to me. I didn’t know what to say—I was ill-equipped to console. Needing to also be consoled.
The Three Laws of Motion
According to the first law of motion, an object at rest remains at rest, and an object in motion remains in motion at constant speed and in a straight line unless acted on by an unbalanced force.
Dust
Every night, the solid bodies of my dreams linger long in the air before falling on my pillow like dust. When I wake up, I collect the dust into a glass jar and observe it.
Throat Chakra
A single table stands in the center of the reiki master’s studio, an open palm waiting to receive me. Subtle scents of lavender and bergamot hover in the air as a flute plays.
Story for a Two-Star Review
This story has all those things you wanted. It has a man whose father showed him affection in weekend games of catch and getting-to-be-a-big-man-now shoulder checks.
Fires of Wild Acre Drive
In the cocoon I made from blankets and a halogen lamp and sweat and heat, I hid, but the heat didn’t bother me because it was only the door to other worlds twelve-year-olds still believe exist.
I Hate Dragonflies
The summer is dying in my arms
While the pages shred themselves
Mirth simmers in humid air
Dread winds like ribbons ‘round my fingers
Pitch
The box was slim and red, square as a girl’s palm with a nice click to the lid. Gold writing, but words didn’t matter. Only one thing fit that shape, a round-as-a-moon-pie, silver-on-one-side, enamel-black-on-the-other, pitch pipe.
Sick, Dying, Dead
The park is half illusion today. My eyes well at what I interpret to be a gothic wedding. The bride in billowing black holds a bouquet of chrysanthemums.
Rock Heart
For my eighteenth birthday, my older sisters proposed that the three of us treat ourselves to stone hearts. Rachel and Helen would pay for mine, as a present.
I Make Altars
I knock your headboard against the stucco and studs rattle the collars we wore the leashes between us wrapped twice round our fists I smash the pots you willed with cracked hands…
Dust
The man on the overpass bridge near my house tells me he won’t jump. He’s been there two hours now, I whisper to the 911-operator, my palms so sweaty I almost drop my phone.
Not Good With Doors
Darren’s not good with doors. Plenty of other things too – faces, names, small talk – but mainly doors. Front door, back door, garage door: he’s just not good with doors. He doesn’t know what the fuss is about.
The day you left
tooth marks on my skin, I did not
recognise the hunger. Your neck blue,
my eyes sweat. Now alone
Quiz: Are You Perpetuating Intergenerational Trauma and Using the Wrong Skincare Line?
1. Do you criticize your children’s weight while also managing perpetually dry skin?
To the Guest Who Found my Toenail in the Extra Bed
I should have known I was sick the fall before when fungus started growing on my thumb. Demolition, of a building or a body, fires warning shots across the bow.
The Kind of Work I Do
Nothing gleams. But by now—my shift in its final tailspin—the last bits of sun can slip into the store, glint off the scuffs and gritty footprints, and shine something fierce.
Afterfeathers: A Zuihitsu
A few weeks have passed since graduation, since the last time I’ll ever see you. I can’t see that yet. I still have hope.
Echolocation
I used to think highly of the timeless problems: mind, body, self, other is, ought. For years, I devoted myself to them. Now I have less interest, because I am a bat.
Birth
Something with the body of a woman
and the head of an antlered dear
approached me in haste.
a get-together
imagine you’re tapping the glass that seals the arctic gale in the freezer aisle of the corner cvs, choosing between the selection of frost-coated cakes and vegan-washed ice creams
For the Love of Numbers
He loved numbers. How they called out to him—the reals, the rationals, and the imaginary. He spent his days counting—nothing in particular—people walking by, ants scurrying across the pavement, even words spilling from a stranger’s mouth.
Knots
On a lonely wooden shelf, beside a small painting of two cities under starlight separated by a comically tall hill, sits a modest wooden frame containing a black-and-white action shot.
Arrivals/ Departures
He journeys through India while I remember his hands at my hip bones, that ringtone of thirst. If you come to Calcutta, he says, bring your hand-me-down soul. For the Untouchables, your brightest magenta sari.
Sound Bath with a Bison
reflected orange light off irises
there is cereal on the counter the dog drinks
& I walk tall to steer noise off the bed
Spears of Light
I carry a sword that blossoms into many. I count, six in hand, and as I count, two more sprout from the ground.
Fog Dip
glowing through bone,
trash chrysanthemums—
building blocks
of death—tally a tear-shaped
People Aren’t Nice
On warm spring days, the yellow school bus drops the elementary kids off just before 3PM. Deflated, they shuffle home to strip off backpacks and refuel.
Lines
The scar tissue of memories has faded but I remember the lines. Scattered flecks of white dust, the sound of plastic scraping against glass. Like stepping in fresh snow.
Taste
1984. Shirtless with rivulets of sweat cascading down your hairy chest as you mow the lawn. Sporting aviator sunglasses and a patriotic red and white bandana.
The Topography of New Territories
Outside a note that isn’t musical egresses a calligraphy-inspired beak. Inside I am unspooling while standing barefoot on a hardwood floor.
Undertow
It was the summer and I remember the dry heat of silence. She’s gone. The room a vacuum. Eyes looking to me. I didn’t know what to say—I was ill-equipped to console. Needing to also be consoled.
The Three Laws of Motion
According to the first law of motion, an object at rest remains at rest, and an object in motion remains in motion at constant speed and in a straight line unless acted on by an unbalanced force.
Dust
Every night, the solid bodies of my dreams linger long in the air before falling on my pillow like dust. When I wake up, I collect the dust into a glass jar and observe it.
Throat Chakra
A single table stands in the center of the reiki master’s studio, an open palm waiting to receive me. Subtle scents of lavender and bergamot hover in the air as a flute plays.
Story for a Two-Star Review
This story has all those things you wanted. It has a man whose father showed him affection in weekend games of catch and getting-to-be-a-big-man-now shoulder checks.
Fires of Wild Acre Drive
In the cocoon I made from blankets and a halogen lamp and sweat and heat, I hid, but the heat didn’t bother me because it was only the door to other worlds twelve-year-olds still believe exist.
I Hate Dragonflies
The summer is dying in my arms
While the pages shred themselves
Mirth simmers in humid air
Dread winds like ribbons ‘round my fingers
Pitch
The box was slim and red, square as a girl’s palm with a nice click to the lid. Gold writing, but words didn’t matter. Only one thing fit that shape, a round-as-a-moon-pie, silver-on-one-side, enamel-black-on-the-other, pitch pipe.
Sick, Dying, Dead
The park is half illusion today. My eyes well at what I interpret to be a gothic wedding. The bride in billowing black holds a bouquet of chrysanthemums.
Rock Heart
For my eighteenth birthday, my older sisters proposed that the three of us treat ourselves to stone hearts. Rachel and Helen would pay for mine, as a present.
I Make Altars
I knock your headboard against the stucco and studs rattle the collars we wore the leashes between us wrapped twice round our fists I smash the pots you willed with cracked hands…
Dust
The man on the overpass bridge near my house tells me he won’t jump. He’s been there two hours now, I whisper to the 911-operator, my palms so sweaty I almost drop my phone.
Not Good With Doors
Darren’s not good with doors. Plenty of other things too – faces, names, small talk – but mainly doors. Front door, back door, garage door: he’s just not good with doors. He doesn’t know what the fuss is about.
The day you left
tooth marks on my skin, I did not
recognise the hunger. Your neck blue,
my eyes sweat. Now alone
Quiz: Are You Perpetuating Intergenerational Trauma and Using the Wrong Skincare Line?
1. Do you criticize your children’s weight while also managing perpetually dry skin?
To the Guest Who Found my Toenail in the Extra Bed
I should have known I was sick the fall before when fungus started growing on my thumb. Demolition, of a building or a body, fires warning shots across the bow.
The Kind of Work I Do
Nothing gleams. But by now—my shift in its final tailspin—the last bits of sun can slip into the store, glint off the scuffs and gritty footprints, and shine something fierce.
Afterfeathers: A Zuihitsu
A few weeks have passed since graduation, since the last time I’ll ever see you. I can’t see that yet. I still have hope.
Echolocation
I used to think highly of the timeless problems: mind, body, self, other is, ought. For years, I devoted myself to them. Now I have less interest, because I am a bat.
Birth
Something with the body of a woman
and the head of an antlered dear
approached me in haste.
a get-together
imagine you’re tapping the glass that seals the arctic gale in the freezer aisle of the corner cvs, choosing between the selection of frost-coated cakes and vegan-washed ice creams
For the Love of Numbers
He loved numbers. How they called out to him—the reals, the rationals, and the imaginary. He spent his days counting—nothing in particular—people walking by, ants scurrying across the pavement, even words spilling from a stranger’s mouth.
Knots
On a lonely wooden shelf, beside a small painting of two cities under starlight separated by a comically tall hill, sits a modest wooden frame containing a black-and-white action shot.
Arrivals/ Departures
He journeys through India while I remember his hands at my hip bones, that ringtone of thirst. If you come to Calcutta, he says, bring your hand-me-down soul. For the Untouchables, your brightest magenta sari.
Sound Bath with a Bison
reflected orange light off irises
there is cereal on the counter the dog drinks
& I walk tall to steer noise off the bed
Spears of Light
I carry a sword that blossoms into many. I count, six in hand, and as I count, two more sprout from the ground.
Fog Dip
glowing through bone,
trash chrysanthemums—
building blocks
of death—tally a tear-shaped
People Aren’t Nice
On warm spring days, the yellow school bus drops the elementary kids off just before 3PM. Deflated, they shuffle home to strip off backpacks and refuel.
Lines
The scar tissue of memories has faded but I remember the lines. Scattered flecks of white dust, the sound of plastic scraping against glass. Like stepping in fresh snow.