Sweet Corn You were tough as beetroot, cracked skin and bloodstains, seeped through my guts until my waste was only you. I was loose...

CW: references to violence Cheap Beer, Madden and Hold ‘em How would I have known there was so much more, just a kid with a 30 rack of...

Tuesdays in February Distracted, I stare blankly out the window- The frosted glass obscures The view I'm not even looking at. People pass...

The Balloon Artist For many years, I was a clown traveling and performing with an infamous circus company. I enjoyed sparking smiles and...

To a Photograph of Someone I Don't Know Named Orene Orene your name makes me want to sit down at an oilcloth covered table and eat...

Hedone I take pleasure in telling the truth, in not telling all the truth, in not telling lies, in hiding so everyone can have a good...

Gerty He had a binder clip holding his hat together. It was one of the first things people noticed when they met him, though most were...

Fear It isn’t the tumor then but the tumor remembered cut from the breast the breast chiseled from the bone rising in dreams or at the...

Former Lives In Last Night’s Dream I follow her through candlelit mazes. I watch her bathe herself in flowers, painting her wings one...

I bet I'll forget the clammy shirt collar, sheepskin lined coat and brown angola school jumper, uncle-close to my skin in the September...

Midnight Apple Picking In the harsh despondency of night, When tears have dived into their sepulchers And the mists, heavy with every...

Advice Don’t be stupid he said to her and I saw the cannonball leave him and hit her splintering her sternum and entering the cavern...

For Stewart Nestled in the coves of Paris, with amaretto biscuits and an egg cup of espresso, I listen for your call. As the daylight...

I taste of salt. salt of the ocean and salt of your palm. you move your thumb back and forth / back and forth across my back / across my...

Flying west as the sun sets It’s like we’re trying to catch the last bit of light Before the night rolls in, Vainly attempting to remain...

North Fork of the Skykomish She stands in the hurry of the river. Sunlight bends among Sitka spruce. Memories loll in shady places and...

I cannot hold this muscle, this lashed-out grit turned limp. It tastes of metal and Vienna sausages straight from the can. Straight down...

“Emotional Regulation” CW: Suicidal Ideation My boyfriend thinks I have issues with “emotional regulation.” “Yelling…” he says, “I can’t...

A fool, I contemplate tomorrow’s fate. For future truth, I truly yearn to know. I think, What if? And next, I speculate, What then?...

Isolation Street A half-smoked cigarette dangles from idle fingers on a shadowed stoop returned from the empty corner bar where one...