We are weary in sweat and heat that settles like skin to skin. Deep in the buzz and whir of small things, dragonflies, mosquito blood suck. We left his car a mile back, broke down again. “What are you giving up for me?” he asks. Accusing is a love right, and any...
Francisco looks down the long wintry road. Wisps of mist hang over the dark trees. The sound of the cooling engine fills his ears, click, click, click. He takes his hands out of his pockets and checks his watch. He will give them fifteen minutes, no more, no less. His...
She’s Splenda-sweet salvation, preened by her parents, who do everything in a -ly way: welcome you hesitant-ly, talk about you loud-ly, watch you knowing-ly before you know why. Your church girl is daisy socks, French braids, smiley-face pancakes. She’s citrus shampoo...
In the beginning, the women were gooseberries. Plump on the vine, squashed under toe, murderous towards pine. When the rains fell, they became millipedes, scrabbling in pain for warm dirt. When the air dried, they jumped into the pond, careening as frogs, then...
I live in a haunted house. By which I mean I live inside your throat. By which I mean I’ve grown so used to this haunted place that it has become unhaunted. I greet the ghosts. The ghosts are my friends. You said you wished to press me into your chest, all the way,...
When she knew she couldn’t keep me, my mother struck a bargain with the ghost men haunting the sky. She fashioned a ship from our placenta—my fuel, her breast milk. The cost of this launch came from her ignorance, her worship of the bone-pale deities that called...
The pocketknife lies open in the dirt, and the snake—headless, milky-translucent muscle—curls in and out, while the girl watches its rhythm, the way it moves not in defeat but in defiance of her father. Sucker should be dead, he says. Still, it dances. Years later, in...
She gets off the bus at the tenth stop. She walks one mile. She walks 280 more feet. She pays in damp cash from the cup of her bra, curled and crunched, soft with the smell of agua de violetas and sweat. Like a baby’s head. The man at the desk smiles, his maw a...
I place Sygna, my late husband's silver swan, into a box in the attic. She keeps me awake all night with her furious metallic din, an unyielding crash-clang of protest. Next morning I surrender and put her back next to his photo on the desk. Sygna quietens, shifts her...
Aunt Sylvia says it’s nothing, but she coughs wicked and that’s when I know it’s coming.Death. We never talk about anything but Judge Judy and how dumb those people are,airing out their nasty shit on television when they could be your neighbors, and then howdo they...
When you cook you use every pot, including ones that can’t go in the dishwasher, because I clean; when I cook, you poke my Brussels sprouts with your fork, pronounce them “mushy,” and push aside your plate. You call my favorite show “aristoporn.” On Saturday, you...
In my language people call it ‘slippery fetus’, cannot be held, unravels like ribbon. You are ‘slippery daughter’, will not be held, all over the floor. Wear colors, no more gray, you are almost see-through. Eat more ginger, less salt, no tears. Take showers not baths...