the chocolate loaches are out early tonight making arcs in the water like banners serpentine shapes that would give Lil Cobra nightmares, despite her snake namesake you don’t like how I write poetry after disagreements, after fights I don’t like how you drink to be drunk, no matter our social climate on principle, I buy […]
keep me (posted)
Caught in a daydream.
autumn
when I close my eyes, sometimes, I am back in his bed, those early January mornings my alarm sounding at 0545 and my love, still fast asleep, tightening his grip around my waist my first thought was I don’t want to leave and my second, his warmth calls me back to sleep but I would […]
if she loved me
This cold weather leaves me longing for warmth.
aquarist
your mother is the type of woman to kill her fish from overfeeding, believing they are still hungry . my mother is the type of woman to say, They’re fine and a week later, find them dead shrugging off her neglect . I am the type of woman to rescue the sick in the stores, […]
bugs for her
Chosen for publication in Kalamazoo College’s literary journal, The Cauldron. Unfortunately, this year’s edition was canceled due to COVID-19.
clandestine
wearing your ears around her neck a sign of respect for the evenings she misses the most remembering when she first married eagerly joining, every single night, another woman’s husband to make love maybe she wanted to be noticed the dragon who grew the size of a house and wouldn’t shrink until acknowledged maybe she […]
stealing milkweed
I accept the shots with grace, though I wonder if she can see it on my face: give Anya my regards; I can’t imagine finding my husband dead, overdosed on our home’s floor bad drugs on the market, my partners keep saying but there’s so much death lately, I can’t hear a damn thing . […]
Unhappy Woman
I have what people call “child-bearing hips.” I guess that means they’re wide or something. I first heard the term when I was playing softball my junior year. Our coach, the one who had a filed record of staring at girls the wrong way, said something as our lead pitcher threw a strike during practice, […]
Contains Alcohol
May
