I am sorry for your loss, someone says. Those words crack the sky open, a ripe burnt hurt, I tally death, my throat marked sore with an X for Brother, Uncles, Sisters, Grandfathers, 18 unratified treaties. Those words crack the sky open, a ripe burnt line forms. Something seems to be missing here– Brother, Uncles, [...]

America whispered to me, Let me get closer to your sadness. I unbuttoned my shirt and pressed America’s hands to my lace cups. America struggled briefly with the hook & eye. I looked upon the thinning hair of America. My nipples shrank to pink stones inside the open mouth of America. I don’t know why [...]

                       

The rock only has a mouth and eyes in the desert. Crush up shards of glass for the rock’s drink; bite down until the rock turns to liquid sapphires, blue as royal sea slums, blue as diving sticks. The enamel chips and gums are left gnawing. Feel something other than the violet noise and wash […]

You can’t spell swan without dick. These birds have been acting out since ancient times. The Greek gods took their form to rape girls and did this because the swan lifestyle inspired them. It’s a form of divine thug life. Recently, in Chicago, a gang of swans flipped a man’s kayak and aquatically jumped him. [...]

How Sad Young Douchebags Took Over Modern Britain The closer the train inches toward the city, its passengers become more morose, not to mention whiter and beardier. They begin speaking to each other in nose-pick, chin-scratch code. I’M SAD, one mewls, tugging on his coarse goatee. THIS WORLD IS BENEATH ME, another bemoans, right pinky [...]

“The wound….occurred suddenly, invisibly; it came out of nowhere.”        Rooms in the woods help you prepare to hold it together for whatever comes from off center. Mewling of goats, villagers crying in their language for water.  The chest opening call to pray de- leafs, snapping you when missiles follow.  If your body is an animal, […]

Daoud can clap and rub his hands to make thunder. He can make the sky grumble, he can make it roar. His hands themselves make no sound—their speakers are the sky. Daoud’s applause can be a frightening, overwhelming thing. He is not an easily impressed man. You can hardly be more impressive than thunder. Having [...]

     

The stranger with his flat axe of copper comes to trade in the village where his axe-shine trumps flint, stone, bone, antler. Now, what fool wants to be buried with ivory beads and clay pots? No more communal burials with women crying over barrows. Each man to his own grave, and as many grave goods [...]

                                                     

And this is how you wear a sock over your head: stretch & cotton-sweat, lips coy as petals, whetted then struck by a barbarous tugging— smell of grass, of cinnamon, of aftershave still on scuttling hand. I live in denim musk, a clam unshelled and flowering in classroom, lockerroom, bathroom stall— I live to enthrall […]