The Unknown Soldier
He sat in his living room, watching on TV as the President lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. The memory returned. He was a child in the woods cupping stream water into his hands after...
View ArticleThe Residual Mother
“Where’s Mum?” I ask Dad. “She’s gone,” he says, slamming pots onto the draining board, water sloshing over the sides of the bowl. “Gone where?” “Just gone; disappeared, vanished, evaporated. She isn’t...
View ArticleWhat Humble Pie Really Tastes Like
Dad brought home a replacement mother. Corrine was sweet, generous, unwanted. Scrawny too – owned a drained face and an abacus ribcage. Good cook, though – fussed over me with casseroles and lush...
View ArticleThe Place of Nativity
We stood on the back porch drinking homemade lemonade from mason jars and listening to the cicadas out in the fields. The sky was still as pink as it used to be on nights like these. You checked the...
View ArticleWords Born, Like I Was, in 1972. A Through M as I Hit 50.
Actioner. The car-chase movie they screwed through.Alternative medicine.Animatronic. “Ever want to give me up?” Mom: “No, my sweet little doll!”Aspartame.Automated teller. Took her job.Bag lady. Bag...
View ArticleLove in Various Lights
I’m slow to come on as my husband tells me he’s met someone.“Whaaat?”“A man.”I’m dizzy. Might blackout.“Kevin.”The kitchen’s cold white fluorescent lights flicker off and on. So he wants a man. Off....
View ArticleA Man of His Social Position
In between polishing the furniture, mopping the kitchen floor and cleaning the five bathroom toilets, Inez Alvarez with a forged green card in her purse and a seven-year-old daughter in San Salvador...
View ArticleSmurfed
Her mug done smurfed, it was turning blue. I said “God damn, Mary, I fuckin’ hate when you quit breathing like this.” She was laid up like a rug on the tile, colder than a witches tit. “Did you pour...
View ArticleAmong the Fatalities
Heather, 19, found by her dad in the family farm, a needle curled in her fist. Outside, acres of mute soybeans, grasshoppers snapping, the sky blush pink. Her brother remembers Heather’s face in a...
View ArticleA Limp Fairytale
The world thought it had seen everything until all the guns went limp, like Dali watches. Monty Python-like, armies were reduced to yelling insults at each other. When they tried to throw hand grenades...
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