Look at those fucking crows, Mona said.  She and Dan and I were sitting on our porch, drinking vodka tonics and staring at the view, which was pretty good with the sun going down and the corn in the field between our two houses almost ripe and ready to harvest. 

Every time I walk to the library
I pass my old friend’s house
who doesn’t live there,
or anywhere anymore.

He was riding down the street like you, contramano, and the image came of you on your bike, and I wished for the dream of the flying bicycle to return, the one where I find you again. 

1.

Not long after my father died, my mother bought a brand-new bright-red Toyota Celica GT. She also started exercising regularly—a mile a day in the pool—and spent more time shopping for

My friend, she wants to win a man over with a story. “He loves to read,” she says, “and I want to impress him. Could you write me something?”

Once a year I decide
I don't love you. It's

today. Watch me
not make you breakfast.

The child is only
this flesh I grew

and you tore 
out of me.

Now it stirs in the

I've seen my friend Taylor sleeping
mouth open sometimes, one time with a boner

Whenever I've awoken him, he has
acknowledged my presence immediately

and put his hand in the

When Sophie arrived home from the Strange Charm concert, she realized she was now in possession of an uncomfortable secret. The next day at work it replayed in her mind at least a hundred times. 

To love is to understand
the tsunami--

that it's just a thing the sea does
when it's been too long

missing the

After the funeral, Dakota drove straight to the airport; there was nowhere else to go. Her brother was the only remaining soul in the Rocky Mountains she’d known.

[Previously on... Part 7  |  Part 6  |  Part 5  |  Part 4  |  Part 3  |  Part 2  |  Part 1]

but that's all about to change. My murder ballads, well, they prefer to terrify. I want to talk more about titular heroes. About what it means to kiss a goose. I mean, kill a goose. I want to do

There’s hardly anywhere like Norton’s anymore, and no one like Norton. He sold phrases for special occasions out of a shop in Queens.

My bathroom break is getting ahead of me.

chipped finger

nails the door shut         a swastika

earlobe   an appalachian woman

swollen & eating dirt       coercing

tiny white knots      you

Chesterfield knocked with two eczematous knuckles—only a courtesy warning to let her know he was coming on in. This time he walked into a locked door.

The dirt on our hands now, how airbrushed in.

A werewolf?
You know, I feel like it's a good possibility, officer, I really do.

Greek Yogurt

my daughter and I were watching TV
it was some show where a group of overweight women
lose a bunch of weight and wear bikinis in front
of their families and significant

Sarah squeezed into a bathroom stall with Ralph. Outside her boyfriend sat at the bar, nursing yet another domestic beer.

where’s my dark booth damp panties mid-day fluff and relief

THE HEART OF THE MATTER

If I had any money I would leave the country. There aren't any people here and I know them all. I only want to express myself, but you can't say things like

Hector was lucky and he knew it. And everyone else knew it too.

[Previously on... Part 4 :: Part 3 :: Part 2 :: Part 1]

Here's what happened. Lt' Pup' Got mental bombed by a cat. Boom. He had to fight for his life in his mind. Boom. And he won the battle.

That thing I scrape against every floor.
That thing, that thing keeps betraying me.

I knock on wooden bones for good luck,
but the splinters in knuckles act as omen.

I fold it with