Where were you when I prayed on the way to school? That day. Every day after that day. Were you making copies for our first fifth grade lesson that morning? Were you feeding the machine, your manicured nails tapping at the buttons? Double-sided. Black ink. Fifteen...
Issue Twenty Two
Packaged Love
Ingredients Two people (40%), sex (30-10%, the percentage decreases over time due to natural weight-gain), friendship (10-30%, the percentage increases over time due to natural weight-gain), same location (10%, can be replaced by phone or webcam, but only for limited...
After the DJ played our favorite Alan Jackson song
and we picked out faraway places on a map and I dropped out of college, and after he made beef stroganoff in my electric wok when I had the flu and he moved in unexpectedly the next weekend, and after the nurse said “Congratulations, you’re pregnant!” and I saw in her...
Man of the House
Is what they call you, shifting their weight from one leg to the other, maybe sighing, always a little tentative, though sometimes they lean down instead, the women especially love to lean down until they’re pressed against your shoulder so you can smell skin cream...
Shipping & Handling Costs
I’m shipping something overseas and today’s the postmark deadline. We also need tennis balls and a green t-shirt for a school play, so I take my youngest three boys and head to the post office at the mall instead of the one downtown. When we arrive, the line is out...
The Unbearable Inertia of Clothes
My clothes are ready to go—wings tacked on,leather belt snug, holey jeans unfolded, ready for the road or the Australiancane toads layered over it in blanketed miles. Hanging on the edge of flight, my clothesknow better than I which direction to go— run clothes from...
March 3rd, 2005
My dad was arrested for abusing my little brother in the bathroom of our elementary school. I’ve never told anyone this story. Everyone knows this story. - I remember this day clearly. I remember it for the wrong reasons. It was a special day at school. We got to wear...
Mother as Conjunction
Spring 2020 I’ve had daughters move home on their way from one frayed relationship to the unknown. The tear-swollen eyes. The packed hatchback, mauve bedspread smashed against the passenger window. This is different. Two of my grown children are here for the duration....
We Carry Our Father’s Ashes
We gather our father’s ashes from the crematorium, two days after the cremation because by then the ashes and bones have cooled down. We sift through them, find the stent that allowed him to eat for ten days before he passed away. We gather our father’s ashes in our...
Love Poem for Mr. Miyagi
From the first moment I saw you through that screen door,chopsticks in hand, I knew I had finally founda teacher to call my own.You started teaching us from the very beginning.When you turned around and gave Daniel that starewe all knew your first lesson: knock, don’t...