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.
We stood on the back porch drinking homemade lemonade from mason jars and listening to the cicadas out in the fields. The sky was still as pink as it used to be on nights like these. You checked the watch I had re-strapped for your last birthday. “Eighteen hours now.” “She’ll be alright.” “You can’t … More The Place of Nativity
Dad brought home a replacement mother. Corrine was sweet, generous, unwanted. Scrawny too – owned a drained face and an abacus ribcage. Good cook, though – fussed over me with casseroles and lush desserts. I ate, hunched over the table, shooting out glare-stares. One night when Dad was working, Corrine spent ages gazing at a … More What Humble Pie Really Tastes Like
“Where’s Mum?” I ask Dad. “She’s gone,” he says, slamming pots onto the draining board, water sloshing over the sides of the bowl. “Gone where?” “Just gone; disappeared, vanished, evaporated. She isn’t here anymore.” He flings up his hands, scattering rainbow bubbles onto the lino. “Evaporated?” “Yes, like the milk.” “The milk?” “Yes, the milk. … More The Residual Mother
He sat in his living room, watching on TV as the President lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. The memory returned. He was a child in the woods cupping stream water into his hands after bloodying his fingers eating berries. Dirt caked his clothes and hair. When the soldier approached, he … More The Unknown Soldier
The Centifictionist 
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