The world thought it had seen everything until all the guns went limp, like Dali watches. Monty Python-like, armies were reduced to yelling insults at each other. When they tried to throw hand grenades they found blancmanges in their hands. Gangsters became a laughingstock when they had to resort to “Bang, bang, you’re dead.” Lions … More A Limp Fairytale
Heather, 19, found by her dad in the family farm, a needle curled in her fist. Outside, acres of mute soybeans, grasshoppers snapping, the sky blush pink. Her brother remembers Heather’s face in a mirror, squinting, half-way to pretty. Remembers the way they played catch with osage fruit, the time he dragged her out of … More Among the Fatalities
Her mug done smurfed, it was turning blue. I said “God damn, Mary, I fuckin’ hate when you quit breathing like this.” She was laid up like a rug on the tile, colder than a witches tit. “Did you pour ice down her shirt?” asked Bobby. “No,” said Steve, “and I ain’t got no more … More Smurfed
In between polishing the furniture, mopping the kitchen floor and cleaning the five bathroom toilets, Inez Alvarez with a forged green card in her purse and a seven-year-old daughter in San Salvador walks Eleanor Diamond’s Cockerdoodle twice a day. She wears Mrs. Diamond’s Fitbit on her left wrist and doesn’t return to the apartment until … More A Man of His Social Position
I’m slow to come on as my husband tells me he’s met someone.“Whaaat?”“A man.”I’m dizzy. Might blackout.“Kevin.”The kitchen’s cold white fluorescent lights flicker off and on. So he wants a man. Off. Not a woman. On. Not me. Off.I stagger away. He finds me staring into the bathroom mirror. Says, “But I love you.”The ceiling … More Love in Various Lights
Actioner. The car-chase movie they screwed through.Alternative medicine.Animatronic. “Ever want to give me up?” Mom: “No, my sweet little doll!”Aspartame.Automated teller. Took her job.Bag lady. Bag kid.Delegitimate. He being a dead-beat Smith,doomsdayer. Mom said I was a Phoenix.Then, bam—dump truck. We survived.Feel-good. Family-sized bottles of pain pills.Gut-wrenching.Hardscape. Tim and I were.Lumpectomy.Mani-pedi. Mom died, her salon … More Words Born, Like I Was, in 1972. A Through M as I Hit 50.
The Centifictionist 