“and when the debt collector calls

tells me to pay up I am covered

head to toe in lavender, sunbathing on the deck

sucking hard on a pressed green juice…”

“There is the white belly of a hawk bending

over the Ford dealership on Central Avenue

and there is the voice of my fear which says

I’ll kill you for exposing me.”

“I’m paying attention to the tornado watch that may become a tornado warning across all of north Mississippi. It was calm outside when I came to bed, but in Mississippi in spring the weather can change that fast.”

“She is face down on the table as the hospital machine whirrs closer, and she thinks: she could lose them, these things that she carries, and it would not matter anywhere near as much as she’s told it would matter, though that may be because her breasts have never mattered much to her. “

“Memory Lane, I say; exactly

twenty years tonight. She laughs,

sips ginger ale.”

“Black varnish, marble & brass. We left California on October 1st & are now in Rosarito.”

“It all went to hell when the goats came out corkscrewed

     and killed their mother. Those kids had to be fed wheat

through the chicken-wire pen.”

“It was dark. Cold. I opened my eyes, and it was still dark. Wood at my sides. Softness in the crook of my left arm. My right hand touched a ceiling overhead.”

“The glass was cursed. That was what the twins said the morning Wahala died. They burst into my room, shrieking and bouncing on my bed like it was Christmas Day.”

“I didn’t know her, so I asked her to marry me. I did this many times.”

“When I walk under Darrell and Tabby’s wooden archway leading into their flower garden and koi pond, I hope I’m not intruding. From the rural road we all live on, I waved hello and Darrell waved back.“

“You’re in the bathroom taking the longest whiz of your life when the microwave starts hollering that your food is done…”

“Cleaver me. Leave it to Beaver me.

Beneath all of Ward's shark suits lives”

“With fingertips, I peel off the skin, then debone soft salmon flesh

the hue of autumn leaves, the late afternoon sky. “

Take a cup of organic henna powder. Yes, organic. Otherwise, you’re buying brownish-green dirt and chemicals. Of course, it’ll cost you. Beauty, after all, has a price. 

Pushcart nominee selection.

no matter why

or if, or in what way, what

I want to say is

Traveling with you is being hungry, always. We prowl the sites like jackals, waiting for our chance to jump. Hot, sugary churros chased down by beer after beer at the ancient bar behind the new colonialist temple, and the ruins of the older Aztec one where we ducked in to escape the rain and warm our July-cooled bones, and stayed until we were as dry and comfortable as the dogs we are, our conversation the only fire, and the music, and the only other people in the place another couple, she with heavy, tightly constrained hips and red, plum-red, hair.