She made the decision to lock him in there, and maybe that wasn’t the right thing to do, but her horse was cast, kicking fervently against the wall of the stable, rolling his black hair against the mulch and craning …
Fiction
Back
My dad couldn't reach the middle of his back. He waxed every part of his stocky, thick body--and then I hopped in at the end to get the patch between his shoulder blades. It became part of our Sunday afternoon routine.
The Moth-Child
She was a marvel: bones thin and brittle, organs misshapen, skin with a cast of gray. Most shocking, of course, were her wings. Not real wings, the local newspaper said, but wing-like protrusions—things that looked like wings but weren’t. Alongside …
Smoke
Aunt May wanted a cigarette, so I sighed myself up and rolled her oxygen tank away. I knocked it against the door frame on purpose. Then I fell back onto the couch, where I watched the smoke float upward, …
Southern Living
Have you ever been somewheres, and there was people speakin’ the names of those you thought was dead, and some of those names belonged to you?
“Rhonda, Rhonda, Rhonda.” And there it is.
Before Hurricane Sally spanked me all …
Calcification
Mother won’t let me eat the bones even though they’re soft enough.
You’ll calcify, she says. The doctor’s lab results report that calcium has already built up in my organs, a stone nestled between blood vessels, a tiny fossil deposit …
Look Don’t Touch
I think of my mother on the train. Nichola and I are seated in the last row of the Metro-North on our way home to Larchmont, huddled together as though we’re trying to hide. Nichola rests against my shoulder. Sunlight …
When it rains
It was night. And then it was day. And Mama became the sun.
She never looked so happy. Gliding through the house. Gospel music blasting. Spinning into dances I didn’t recognize.
Her voice vibrated with a rhythm of her making.…
The Last Word
A husband dies on a day like any other day. Open Nutella jar on the counter. The frustration of Tupperware lids that don’t match Tupperware bottoms. A smudge of watery sunlight — the kind that comes in after an early-morning …
Whenever You Cross the Michigan Avenue Bridge
You always run. In case it opens up beneath you, splits in two so that each half can hinge up and let boats pass through on the river.
You know, don’t you, that it won’t open without warning? That there …
