A User’s Guide to My Heart Lesson 1: When you find it, throw it as far away as you possibly can, preferably, at a vertical angle. Know that there is no such thing as a friendly firework, that it will tail you like a greedy sun just waiting to ignite your everything and claim ownership over […]

Unpacking Straight Down The skydiver sighs the whole way down. Not even the bull could hear his feet lost in the grass. The colors engulf him, his parachute wrapped him for the first time. At some point it will be time to pack the backpack. It will be harder than the leap. From above the […]

We Were Tired of Living on Earth I. The wood panels on the wall began to flake and splinter. We saw, more than once, the face of Jesus Christ in carpet stains. The ceiling seemed to drip syrup; the vents coughed black ash. Our neighbors never smiled–in fact, I can’t remember their full-faces, only frowns. […]

Gunslinger After the Psych Ward She cooks alone at the stove in underwear. The water is cold again. Now hot. She wants to drown in a tubful of milk. Wants a bottle of champagne and a thimble from which to drink. She wants the forks to rise up like a readied battalion. She sips tea […]

I. There is only room for one. Concrete chairs keep the curious at bay. No one loiters here. Once a wayfaring stranger didn’t mind the grit: the cold grey contoured to his body. II. Our story captured in one shot. An aesthetic choice? We couldn’t afford  more film. III. I did not want, until you […]

I Believe As Much As Little, That’s The Title, The Title Is That When you aren’t surprised by love in a tent you’re asking, asked about the digital blinking, window hangman or woman lips, hips hung on designer indecision, the silence broken by eyelids whether they’re why or how. She turns herself so I see […]

After your grandfather father died in the voice of my mother We sat Shiva. Your aunt convinced the community she was grieving harder, held her own Shiva at the same time. No-one came to mine, left me with the body though, rotting, and filled with smoke. So I did what any good daughter would do, […]

Something Nathan said that made me wonder where you went “Sometimes I fall in love with the wrong furniture.” Ottomans instead of nightstands, I’m guessing, lamps instead of chests of drawers. Upholstered loveseats versus built-in bookshelves — spiral stairwells — the act versus the shun. I cringe at writing silence — but mornings break, fog […]

She Paints with No Frame For Aubrey Hirsch I like your kind of breaking, the particle of it, the magic & the lack of lid on it, the char that drops blue as truth, wrapping the physics of our human restraint around the infinitely rich imagination of believers. I believe in color, I believe in […]

Paintings of a Dead Lover 1. Anna in Manhattan, playing the flute in a melting room. Rats push to the front, to the subway door, caught under the air they suffocate during the C flat. 2. Anna in Vermont, naked on the sheepskin, next to an iron stove. Firemen wait outside for a chance to […]