Mama tries to hug me, but I push her away. Run down to the tracks where I know I ain’t supposed to play. But l do anyway. Everyone does cuz there ain’t nothing else to do in Cadiz, Ohio in 1950.
Riding Backwards
An Agreement
But there was that agreement, bigger than the people affected by it. It was not a deal that anyone had constructed. There had been no negotiations. It was something that seemed to have manifested on its own and Gwen had no choice but to accept it.
Change in Litbreak’s Policy
Even with the gloves off, which I am increasingly likely to want, I think that Litbreak can remain evenhanded.
Home is Not Where the Barn Is
The house we lived in was a remodeled barn. It felt more like a barn than a home. We were the animals.
Las Meninas
The Spencerville Police Department gave Rachel Velázquez a retirement party with a cake and a poster-size reproduction of Diego Velázquez’ painting Las Meninas, Ladies in Waiting. It was like the post card sized print she’d kept on her desk for eighteen years but bigger. She’d bragged to everyone that she was Diego’s descendant. She wasn’t. She had the print for another reason. She’d stare at it, imagine herself the king’s daughter at the center of the picture. Safe from any danger, flanked by her ladies in waiting, surrounded by her entourage.
Organoleptic Cacophony; ginsenoside; cemetery of crooked proboscises
Silence does not exist: Faced with (im)possibility Things that My body Speaks to me, Usually whispers, Are now made screams.