It was only her eyes that changed; gently, until one day she saw about her not grace but men: fragile in their frailties, their palms’ spread wingspan just as wide as her own hands. They were born together, youths together, fought arms linked in the grass-shot fields of Troy, grew tall together: wan shadows of […]
at night I hover above the beams you’ve hammered between heaven and your spread silk coverlet the air, which is nothing to you, is everything to me the wood, which is something hard to you, is nothing to me I slip fingers beyond the pine knots and holding on to breezes with my […]
You ask as if there is shame in thinking, as if I am sure of my thoughts, but I think what I can scarcely say. A child’s book of riddles: I have lost myself on purpose. I am made of an alloy that your world does not possess. I am vast and delicate. I […]
I wish I didn’t hunger for this so badly that I would have one so unripe, my plea for it out of season. We should have both waited. But we simply couldn’t be sated by patience. Wanting pretty things is hunger, too, and having is feasting, denied by few. A rose alone was all my […]
She has perfected the art of coming apart, splitting herself from herself. Night falls and hunger claws her belly from the inside out. Scapulae shift and willing flesh parts; her wings muscle free. A snap of the wings and a twist of the waist. She is undone. Legs left bedside, the better part of her […]
I never noticed the zipper hidden over my chest bone until after you died. It’s funny how things like that go unnoticed, unused for so long. Now I grasp the pull, drag it down, reach into my chest cavity, spread the ribs, just a bit, dig among soft organs, and pull out a box. It’s […]
for Selkie In the magic realist novel, we find the firebird in the attic of your grandmother’s diary where the last poet she went to school with left it burning like a ner tomid before she was caught in the wind of rolling stock and ash all these stories come to, their tracks stitching history’s […]
left alone atop the black diamond, my fear cat makes her descent paw by paw. she pauses to sniff every wiped out snowboarder, limbs akimbo, every knotty burr above the white. cats relish the height, as they are, but steadily she meanders down the infinite slope, claws tucked in the landscape of the dread I […]
proper speech requires sharp teeth. the trick is to not make the sharpening process lengthier than it needs to be, especially with your condition. lay out your expectations. do you intend to smile while you speak today? put more time into polishing as you sharpen. do you have a couch date with your soul-bonded lover […]
I unzip my body like a big soft sack, looking for more things to sell— that’s how my grandmother survived the war. When I was born, she wasn’t fat, just her skin, sagging over treasures sold in hunger. A big emptiness where all had once been— words, family, an open window with its freshly starched […]