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...
Living so closely When the girl falls off a cliff, a few people hear a shriek, see a black dot with flailing arms. Thereafter, fear colors their ohs and ahs, as they talk about her, the color of her dress, her hair, even her eyes, aimlessly staring at the fogged-up...
We smoke because the nuns say we shouldn’t—he-man Marlboros or Salems, slender and meadow fresh, over cups of thin coffee at the Bridge Diner. We fill an ashtray in an hour easy while Ruby the waitress marries ketchups and tells us horror stories about how her first...
The telephone poles looked like crucifixes. I had the time to contemplate them, and that was how silent it was. We all remained inside like the person on the radio demanded us to. We looked out the large window, having pushed aside displays of shelved books and tea...
In summer, waiting for night, we’d pose against the afterglow on corners, watching traffic cruise through the neighborhood. Sometimes, a car would go by without its headlights on and we’d all yell, “Lights!” “Lights!” we’d keep yelling until the beams flashed on. It...
It was 10th grade, the year of Hurricane Isaac, which mowed down the mighty oak in the teacher’s parking lot, snapped it like a cinnamon stick and prompted Mr. Luckanza to teach us about dendrochronology, counting the tree’s rings. Grown-ups wanted to turn everything...
From the rear wall, Metalhead looks at the back of a girl’s head in History class. She is the only black girl in class and always sits in front, right next to the American flag. They are learning about Civil Rights, how one man had a dream and taught America about the...