— Your father had an ear infection so I lit a cigarette and blew smoke into his ear and like a damn fool started smoking again and playing those Hawaiian background music records until I got the scrof jaw which you can see has been removed through a bit of kind surgery at the Home for Incurables. Just the right side, I believe. I…
from Conversational, Ohio by Benjamin Sutton
— That was when one of the nieces said another was pregnant, her bones like scaffolding— placing all the steel bulk front-and-middle, structurally inept among her sisters. The too-tall-beauties. And that would have been when the day fell off, when Grandma made love to the crucifixion story, the praise-be-to— but she was busy, listening to a grandson complain that the brown of the trees…
Three New Art Works
“Orange Sky” “Tree and Planets” *
Karuk Nation
1. Root, Antler, Fork, Braid His daughter Root. That wasn’t her name, and he called her that. I found her at the driveway’s end, a cruel-looking girl. I asked what was she doing out here in the dark. Come with, if you want. House built into the hill. Antlers propped against a propane tank. He came out with a long, steel, grilling fork pointed at…
Untitled
I was prophesied to die at a certain age, and knew nothing that could cure me. Later, much later, the world was stretched out before me like leather, one morning after another. I asked the wise among my friends, “I will go out onto the white and endless savanna, is it there I will find my charm against sleep?” My wise friends consulted themselves, and…