Diamond Blanket Sky
Like all nights, this one was muggy and black. It will rain tonight, he thought as he rubbed his arthritic knee. Maybe.
When I Close My Eyes
my hair sways long / black streams cascade / down my back / somewhere, skies illuminate after somber rain
Inheritance: A Dance
Many of the “Indians” — that’s what they call themselves and what we call them too — in our small Alaskan town live in a separate community called Saxman.
[It is unseemly]
It is unseemly to blow your nose into a tablecloth. If you share a / bed with another man, keep still. If you pass a person pissing, do /not greet him.
Heaven is a Place on Earth
Out past the bridge, past the edge of town where the old houses give way to the stretch of firs that continues for a few miles before dissolving into shrubland, there is a little church
Out of the Shadows
The topic of “real” American identity and assimilation has never been so simultaneously divisive and uniting.
My Mother Bought Me a Scarf
It came from a catalogue. I opened / the plastic bag inside the plastic bag / and out tumbled fabric fine as flesh.
The Dissected, Standing
Beyond dead. Torsos glazed with epoxy, exuding an icy sheen. A spinal column exposed, its flimsy cord dangling from a robust sacrum.
More Than a Dog
Mama was born in the year of the Dog. In the Chinese Zodiac, dogs are known to be loyal and stubborn, of which she was both, but mostly I thought of her as brave.
In a Diner at Great Sand Dunes Oasis, Colorado • Case Study
The chalk taste of prescription pill / washed down / with too-sweet lemonade. I only take it / because you do, and I wonder / if you get high so you can tolerate me.
Art in the space of social issues
