The Abstinence Card
Erik Martinez
It sat in my wallet while I made out with a guy during the “Josie and the Pussycats” movie
The first time I went to Paris, I was seventeen and stayed with a man who was thirty-three, Sylvain.
So Mom didn’t come with us to the grocery
store, but she insisted when a box of Grape Nuts
or Popsicles tasted off it was because we hadn’t
selected the box behind the first, that hiding
in the
It sat in my wallet while I made out with a guy during the “Josie and the Pussycats” movie
I never mixed meth with hooking. Not once. I didn’t want to ruin it! (Meth, I mean.)
When the first billionaire exploded I was at the drive-thru with my dad.
...not enough steroids, / the wrong steroids...
It’s August in Manhattan when we both decide to leave. You accept a job in LA and my boyfriend packs my life in a U-Haul and drives it to our new apartment together in Pittsburgh.
When I toss
...How to say / hello without breaking / stride...
The funeral home gave me a special calendar to keep track of the Yahrzeit until 2034, but after that I will be on my own.
It is a miraculous thing, this audible sun.
o lion mane and petalled armore, / you sweet corona of twist & curl...
Something about a synaptic neurotransmitter. You won’t really understand.
His voice, crisp like apple vodka, poured into the September air.
But to write We thought is a fiction.
We always felt that…the moment you write this phrase, you have lied.
I looked up at Rudy, his back hitting the air like a ruler. The mind is an act of balance, he said, looking at me. It is a lever for the body.
Our hypothetical date tomorrow is at a show for the band Tennis. I have never heard of them, but I trust him. I say I will work my magic to get us in.
I’ve been told by plenty of people in this first year of parenthood that having a child is like having your heart outside your body. This always sounds to me like a horcrux.
Who could need this much flesh? Four pounds of Louisiana crawfish, one pound of Alaskan king crab legs, six pounds swordfish steaks, a pound of oysters, three pounds lobster tails, five ribeye steaks, three New York strips, six T-bones, four packs of stew beef, two family packs of chicken drumsticks, and enough shrimp to fill five plastic shopping bags.
How harrowing it must be to swallow the syrupy scraps of night,
then ask for more.
Last summer everyone was wrestling. Claudia started it. She said It’s been so long since I touched someone and threw Tobias on the ground.
I love you best
like this: sun in your hair, a heavy daze
of pollen on your eyelids.
The Barrington, CT Boston Market offers the creamy richness of all Boston Market feeding centers.
HEY THERE, Bill Baxter. This is your friend Sue Parnet. I just now saw your name pop up and decided it is time to see how you are doing.