Intermission

I stand by the window that makes up the wall beyond the railing, and look over the people mingling on the floor below me. Women in close fitting dresses, that stay on only due to friction, sip gold from plastic and flirt with anyone they want. A seven dollar cup of wine burns my chest […]

Foul

The ducks kick each other with their webs, fighting over bread that slowly kills them. Fake psychics and Mormon missionaries hand out pamphlets, with opposite opinions about what people should do with their hands. Bills close on green and white necks at each clash of talon and feather. There is only one way out of […]

The Lizard

A lizard sits atop a neon sign that beckons semis to pull off from their long hauls and bathe in the colored light. Its narrow pupils scan the sky for mosquito to bite out of the air. Metal ashtrays reflect moonlight and collect burning filters, paper and foam stained orange from the bleeding chemicals. The […]

The Carver

A box fan that was as clouded as a smoker’s lung didn’t cool down anyone. It sat in the corner of her workshop where she carved things out of wood. Her knives like a family tree, most of which forged from the same chunks of carbon and iron. The handles all made of deer bones […]

Dead Engine

A rusted car with no hood parked too close to a sapling, long ago, now snared by branches growing in between the gaps of a dead engine. A gray cloth tacked to the white wall of a studio apartment at the edge of the city. It is used as a screen by the spacey tenants […]

Sandlot

An empty neighborhood baseball field with weeds tearing through the sand like index fingers through the membranes of plastic grocery bags. I sit in the bleachers still silver after all this time. An old wooden bat has grass growing through it making holes and removing the varnish. A faded banner for a lost team haunts […]

Confirmation

She pulled the letter out of a booth cushion, at a diner downtown. The old fake leather cut smoothly against the blade of her roommate’s pocket knife. Who was sitting across from her keeping watch for the pacing manager, through the small square of glass in the middle of the kitchen door. She read the […]