Because Davie Gray is protected by the blood of Jesus and his scripture-spouting pastor daddy, he stays in the classroom practicing his times tables while the rest of the class waits outside the gymnasium, sleeves rolled, for the stern-faced nurses to swab and stab us...
In the footnote: He read Basketball diaries, but he was Latino and he did not wear a shirt titled, Latinidad, or at least not out in the daylight, or it was that his shirt titled Latinidad was too tight to fit into. He could finger roll like Ewing. He could fake to...
Legacy My ancestors were star smugglers. Becoming a mule was their only way out of the darkness. They would hide the stars in their bellies and wear thick clothes to conceal their glowing midriffs. Every night, I thank them. For the sacrifice they made. For what they...
Bed A gift from Kayla’s father, who put her head through a wall when she said David Bowie was holier than Jesus Christ. He buys a twin; he doesn’t know (can never know) she’s sharing it with me. When the box arrives, we assemble the bed together and tell each other...
After three days, my husband comes home with the moon pillow, still in its plastic. I don’t know how he paid for it. Maybe he didn’t. “For you,” he says. Nothing else. He’s stopped explaining his disappearances and I’ve stopped asking. I already know more than I want....
I wanted to live on Love Street when I grew up. To steal paperbacks about salvation sex and hide them under my bed. I told myself that one day the sound of my name would make a man sick and then well. The dog was my very first love. We were criminal friends. She'd...
Image You’re always embarrassed in photographs, holding up your hand, saying wait, wait, and it’s your hair or your makeup or there’s something in my eye, and I breathe slowly, fighting the urge to say but you’re beautiful because you don’t want to know. Later, you...
Around the dining room, the guests make small talk. The talk of some is so small, it is quark-sized. Some talk easily. Two or three flirt. A few examine gesture’s blueprint in the kitchen. Snippets mimic augmented fourths. Pitch echoes reinforcement, denial, and...
Mother is desperate. Baby will not stop crying. Her toothless maw quivers, her eyes slit, her cheeks squinch red. Mother is desperate. She tries everything Doctor recommends—bicycling Baby’s plump legs, massaging her rotund tummy. She...
He hands me a place card, high rag-content, from our glittering table with someone else’s name in calligraphy so elegant I can’t read it without my glasses, and he says, “Pretend this is a hotel room-key for two nights.” He curls my hand around it. We are...
That the dog didn’t bark was the first sign. Who acts like that, who, tell me who acts like that at a parent’s wedding? He was a Texas Holdem player and I’m Five Card Draw. His saxophone rode the piano, drums, and bass like a surfer on giant waves at Nazare....
Because the princess was dying of love for the suitor, the suitor who was so athletic and so strong, the great suitor who despite the princess's would not love her back—because when he spurned her, she determined to kill herself— No. No she did not. She would never...