Prose, Poetry, and Art since 1956
Fences We built fences along the spine of the Blue Ridge, bore through the shale deposits like a fist invading the sovereignty of someone’s nose. We sweated through our heat-faded shirts, turned tawny and blistered in the sun, swung hammers the way I imagine the first ape to wield a limb felt just before it struck some other lumbering biped who up until then had…
Ice Caves I can’t hike the Cascades without thinking the worst, be it rockslide or heatstroke, or cougar springing out of the ferns and devil’s club. Day of fun ruined. My dad carries a Glock on his hip to make him feel safe but I know it’ll be the asthma that gets him. Or crashing blood sugar. Or bad knees. At the end of a…
This Strange Continent Let’s write of our grandmothers. Mamaw always made biscuits. Her rings hung around her thin fingers like a rattle. With these hands that drove a munitions truck during the war, that beat her children, that hurled trash at Black children at the carnival in Northern Louisiana in the 1930s when they tried to enjoy it. Let’s write of our grandmothers and say…
part one: posed normajeanie’s room is open Norma sets her laptop on the old costume chest at the foot of the bed.[1] Socks pulled up to her knees, an ambiguous ring on her left hand—these are the things they like. ulikecashilikeass: nice to see u on again ulikecashilikeass: got that real special look Norma plays music. She doesn’t speak. She holds in reserve a shy…
I got you. These joints clean, bruh. Clean. Classic too. Jordan introduced these joints during the 1995 Eastern Conference Finals vs the Orlando Magic. Bulls lost that year. I know. Rodman wasn’t there yet. They’d go on to earn three more rings, of course. But don’t trip on that, mane. Cause these the kicks he laced up in the movie “Space Jam.” The joints that…