Page 3 - Issue 163 News Today

To float on something she has never seen, my daughter will need her teeth, which she did not get from me. Her liver, yes. Her death also. Her breath, no. To float, she will not need to be lighter than air, just lighter than terror, whose volume increases with heat. She will not need her peach cheeks. The green of her eyes neither. Terror is a color -less field. I gave her the

When you finish burning, what’s left sends a black thread of smokethrough fresh ash like a handwaving the last of us away.You didn’t ask to return,if you did, God never answered,passing your request to some minor deity,some lesser bird of paradise.Nonetheless, you’re here,your body the shape of a milk snake,whale shark, dust devil—something only appearing to be

The day I began turning blue, I had taken off from work and was striding briskly down Main Street when a man said to me, “Hey, baby.” He smelled like funnel cakes, and he spoke with authority. I had been taught not to talk to strangers, so I kept walking past the quiet storefronts, my neck prickling.“What’s your problem?” he demanded. “You can’t say ‘hey’ back? At least turn

My mother called again today.Where did I live? she said.I reminded her she used to livein Clearwater. Belleview Biltmore.Indian Rocks. Rememberthe white sand, I said. Rememberthe palms. When my father died,I went for a swim in his pool.It seemed the only thing to do.I know now a black-crownedblue heron came to watch. Ilearned his name from a book.

At what age could you hold a glass of milkin two hands? In one? I never get to see that, let alone remember it. In this life, I never even glimpse you, Daughter. In this world, I amthe one who is the perpetual child, born out of my mother’s darkness, into a brightness without her. Later, I was told I saw her face when I was carried to her, but then she died of the disease my

Like a bird fills a tree, then empties it, glass of sweet green water, light comes from the dark pockets the birds make                                         —If instead I could worship the tired boats that meander like dogs near death, and what if I could? These beautiful dogs are dead. These dogs make beautiful dead. The fog lusts for the open sky and takes it from us. It

When the boy who used to place me repeatedly in headlocks on the school bus then punch me with his free hand died last fall, his obituary listed the names of his children and grandchildren, an almost-biblically impressive collection of begetting. And as I read those names in the paper, I remembered the tireless pistons of the boy’s blows existing in the same continuity of time