Prose, Poetry, and Art since 1956
Not enough fireflies winking over the lawn to brighten even oneof those canning jars you used in childhood. And the crows no longer roistering at dusk behind your house. That’s where it startstonight—your mental list of grievances like the reckoning of a miser over his cache.Or is it to master them that you recite the small along with the large affronts— the burnt rice, the…
among the taxidermy mountain goats in the museum of natural history the little girl dreamsof a shipwreck; she sways on the bow when the wavecapsizes her & aloneshe sinks her wool coat,pockets full of starlings glossy & dark—they fighttheir path to the surface,erupting— she can see the murmurthrough the sugar glassocean / in her eyes areflection of a small egg,sinking afterdark at night, when the…
hanging from the Pit River bridge; he liked heights. It was not the hours huddled over drinks at the nearest bar. Nor was it the asbestos blankets that shrouded his lungs. And yet, his grin is easy, as if his days were blithe, fortune set. When he’d hoist me onto his shoulders, I leaned like a figurehead, charging the clouds. But he’s outlived the battery…
The door swings open slamming against the cement wall. Two guards stand at the opening. They do not cross the threshold; instead they peer in as if into the mouth of a cave. Perhaps they are revolted. It seems wise to be revolted by a cage. Come with us. The smaller one carries a baton. He swings it casually; a batter up to plate—or as…
Melanoplus spretus “Rocky Mountain locust” And they shall cover the face of the earth, that one cannot be able to see the earth . . . and shall eat every tree which groweth for you out of the field: And they shall fill thy houses and the houses of all thy servants . . . —Exodus 10:5–6 (KJV) Sun-shuttering abundance, a…