Prose, Poetry, and Art since 1956
Sheep fell outside herselfpink anemone protrusion pinktongue splat wide between molarsa yell like a horn or stripeof gummy candy. O matted warmbody, curled around youngclumps of boneless massMother As we kneel, our elbows redin your colostrum/shit-cakedhole. O sheep!Bodies pressed to the woodto the wool—nowyou must run and hopeyour own vulva flips, a fruitpitted, a gut strung, a childhappy, twirling in the waves. Photo by Antonello…
She tells me it is a feast day because it is a day to honor the ancestors. She says ancestors in English and I can’t name the emotion I feel; if shame has an ambivalence, it is secretive like the hummingbird in flight. I am older, and I don’t have a baby like she did. I will never forget the few mothers I met in…
I do not want him to see me sitting in my recliner by the window. Only I am aware of this secret—that I ordered furniture online because it would be too heavy for me to carry to the second floor alone. I crouch behind the wall, watch him brace himself, watch him balance the first package on his shoulder like a see-saw, a dresser for…
The jar looks to be full of swamp water. Its contents swirl and leave grit on the glass when you turn it over in your hands. “Duck blood soup,” explains your mother. “Czernina.” It always makes her sound even more Michigan, you think. She says it like chy-NEE-nah, which looks like “China” plus one syllable in your head, and sounds like CHAI tea, a woman…
The first time I saw Laura Patterson’s guts was 6 years ago. We had just met, sophomore year of high school, when she sat down next to me in the library. We chatted for a few minutes. She was a new sophomore, quite eager to talk to me. I assumed she was like this with everyone, looking for new friends. But I was too, so…