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Sometimes, when I wake in the middle of the night, I think about the time we convinced ourselves a mountain lion lived in the field behind our houses. Remember the sticks we found cracked in the grass, the paw prints leading to the creek?
After I become a ghost, I decide to haunt my ex-husband. This is not as vindictive as it sounds. I bear him no ill will. I merely wonder what it feels like to be him. You see, my husband is a man, and I had been a woman. I am curious to try on a suit of flesh with new bits and bobs in it. And because we were once physically intimate, it would not be much of a violation to
I had coffee with Brodsky in a Janiculum barI didn’t know English, he didn’t speak the language of CervantesWe could barely understand a damned word He ordered a hard-boiled egg sandwich while reflectingUpon the innate clarity of the Roman ruinsAt least that’s what I deduced from the way he was runningHis ideas like a razor across the face of a boyThe clowns are destroying the
You scrub all the checkered, tiled floors of the Catholic school on weekends to pay off suspensions. You take out the garbage while priests smoke on the balcony of the rectory next door. One priest has a porn mustache and a lisp. One priest is an ex-boxer with dementia who practices his golf stroke in the parking lot. One priest has a secret boyfriend named Bruce and steals
That was the winter we discovered how filthy we all were. Defiled by toxins and microscopic debris from our food, air, clothing, shampoo, and perfume. It lurked in our eyeshadow, sectional sofas, and wall paint. Infused our dish soap and radiated from our iPhones. Clung to our painted toes when we walked barefoot in the tick-treated grass, sifted through our vacuum filters and