My friend drives the car with her left foot propped up against the window frame. Helps circulate the air up my shorts, she says, keeps me nice and cool in the summer heat. She had once signaled left with her foot, but the cop tailing […]
Art of Language
Only in my mind can I talk. What about these neuron dashes across the dark screen of my injured brain? Those are the words I cannot form. Nerve signals to my face, tongue and mouth muscles are jammed. Held up. Can’t get through. So, I […]
Bedlam
It’s an eclectic place with two dragon heads and another dualistic art piece: two coal black drawings of hollowed women are framed in one rectangular piece of glass. A library is carved into the wall with well-manicured spines of books and a couch is carved […]
Houseleek
My childhood was one of outdoor games, cuts, bruises, torn clothes, muddy shoes, mischief. Even though playing outside strengthened mine and my sister’s immune systems and we rarely got seriously ill, minor cuts, infections, and colds were unavoidable and somehow inevitable. My grandma Lena took care of […]
Reality Reality
There’s a camera crew in the bushes outside the restaurant when I walk in. I can’t see them but the bushes rustle as I walk by and I hear the whirring of what must be cameras. It’s our first date. We sit at a white-clothed […]
Lunarscape
She’d never liked how she looked in pictures. Photos were fine, actually—most were pretty accurate, the diminutive black machines saw to it. It was the paintings that annoyed her, prompting her to hide behind the nearest water-logged cloud. Which would explain why they unfailingly depicted […]
Black Coffee Barista
Jeremy served his hundredth morning expresso while watching Beth. Continuous orders interrupted his view as foam hearts, leafs, and kitties dominated coffee requests. Instagram was a barista’s worst nightmare. Yet Eliza “Beth” Adaline predicted with unearthly accuracy what pleased. She danced through her morning shift, […]
A Classmate
Sue and I lived together in an apartment right after high school. She attended junior college and had such a crush on this boy, Troy—a classmate. He sang in the choir, too. She would drag me to all of his shows, and I’d egg her […]
Arlen Needs a Home
Saturday morning before Easter, 1958, Dad helps a little boy, who holds a brown paper bag, out of our Buick. Mom and I have stepped outside to greet them. Dad introduces Arlen to Mom and me. He is from the big stone orphanage next to our […]
I’m Your Guy
People used to tell me I turned into an unattended band saw on high when I drank. They said I lost control. I recognized control as an idea. Intangible. They thought it was a cap you could screw on. But that’s shallow. We never had […]
Waiting for BART
“Where the fuck are you?” Everyone’s looking away from the woman on the bench with her cell phone. We’re waiting for the BART train to San Francisco and it’s chilly on the platform, at least for Northern California. My husband and I are both bundled […]
Wind and Rain
1. My lover rides her bike through the wind and rain. Her head is shaved on one side. The hair on the other is jet black and hangs long, wet and stringy. Rain beads on her bright red lips as on a car recently polished. […]
