Keeping House
Left alone in my mother’s house, I clean: clear dishes, fill the washer, measure soap. Its humming fills the kitchen and I hunt for silver polish to clean now-tarnished spoons that someone gave her on her wedding day. There’s so much to do but not enough to make me stop (thinking of you) aaaaaaa
School Days
They call in my mother because I don’t know how to read. She sits stiffly on a chair, ready to spring. She smells like cigarettes and perfume to cover up the cigarettes. Smoking kills. “We’re concerned about Melanie’s reading,” says the Principal. She’s also sitting stiffly on her chair,
A Suggestion
We can only imagine that the child went softly, aaaaaaafound some comfort in those flowers he is gripping, hardened now to fossils, while his fingers are dust. If there is something to add, supply it here, for even beneath the earth, one day there will be nothing left to hold onto. &nb
Not a Fairytale
There are lots of things I could tell you about Tom but the only one that really matters is that he jumped off the bridge when he was twelve. Because he wasn’t scared, you see. He’s never been scared of anything, not as long as I’ve known him, which is just about forever. Things that […
‘Sciamachy’ by John Fuller
I Whoever from the stinking village calls One quick accusing word, Or stiffens, circling like a bird About the empty air, or who has heard Some wall beneath a finger hiss, he falls. This knowledge is not good. We must invent The sparkling education Of the Dog, condone the bun Crammed in its gob: our
The Grandness
The Sunday Gazette January 17th 1995 PAGE 1, REASONS TO TRAVEL LATE AT NIGHT You like being in public when the public aren’t in. A rare certainty in this life is that when other people come in, they will close the accordion you had opened of yourself shut again. Train times to avoid: lunchtime, po
Budapest, Autumn
You’ve seen me, love, tapping Morse code on the pavement, breaking all this peace with both my feet. I’ve been walking home, in the dusk where the concrete settles, thinking “this scene tears my heart — someone should write it down.” With the light on the water, and the day
‘THE TALE OF HAMKIN’ OR ‘THE LITTLE SAUSAGE BOY’
Anon. – Translation from the Middle Dutch by Joshua James I am now going to recount to you the very unfortunate tale of Hamkin, who was a young boy made all of sausages and meat products. I have heard the tale told many times before by tellers various in skill and apprehension, some telling it
