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Epiphany
All of us are smitten by the cute. And the shine of symmetry. The clear, un- blemished skin of stunning’s layer. I could sing each varied note of your cantata. In its proper key. Something that’s beyond my scratchy throat. My wineless inhibition. You say the sweetest intonation was from a haggard in the alley, bottle on its side beside her feet—bare, sniffed out by a rat’s consuming hunger: Mama take me with you. Reach down with your hands, gently tickle like you did. I rem

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Oct 201 min read


Solace, or What My Evangelical Friend Taught Me About the Afterlife
Heaven will be a never- ending church service. We’ll be singing our lauds to the Lord forevermore! And that’s the good place? You mean Hell is gonna be even worse? We sat on a wooden pew for 90 minutes. The sermon warned of Satan’s crafty wiles. Our asses ached like the devil. When I asked if there’d be pillows, he said he didn’t know. But some of the Angels shed their milky feathers. What’s the point of moulting if it brings no sense of comfort? My son who died at seven w

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Oct 191 min read


Spines, or Assumptions for a Sunday Afternoon
There is always something said of rising smoke. There is fire. But it might just be my camel’s cigarette. No, you read that right. I’m not a shill for Camel, their burning cancer sticks my parents smoked. I mean the one I’d ridden home from the Gobi Desert. There’s no other valid reason to visit the Gobi. Not for the superfluous sand. How it gets in your every orifice. I’m not gonna bother to tell you how we crossed the Atlantic Ocean. It’s already clear you don’t beli

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Oct 171 min read


The Kippah
I’m considering converting to Judaism. Only so I can don a yamaka. My bald spot’s like a cancer— one of embarrassment. I should be in a fucking monastery baking bread. But those are the Franciscans. Watch it spread & conquer every inch upon my head. Like the blob— goddamn Slavic genetics. Some idiot on Seinfeld converted for the food. I mean sure, a knish is nothing to sneer. I won’t even mention circumcision. That’s not the biggest problem, believe- it-or-not: According t

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Oct 162 min read


La Croyance
Nothing’s more divisive than belief. The foundation for believing’s miles deep. Its wall beyond the cirrus. You insist the Earth is flat. You can only dig in meters. The sky is breached in furlongs. Touch its crystalline upon your ladder. Belief is loudly heard in our preferred glossarium: Go back to your own country. Learn to speak in English. Our parapet is guarded by those in camouflage. They come in triune flavours: jungle, sand & snow. They’re working on aquatics.

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Oct 151 min read


Les Royalistes
This website I’ve discovered is vastly sophisticated. It’s not imploring me to accept intrusive cookies —rather, crème brûlée— its outward, sugared sheen, in touch with its inner pudding. Oatmeal chocolate- chip wanted to know my every going; who I’m voting for; whether I’ve an innie or an outie. The crème brûlée inquires if I’ve ever studied Chaucer; my favourite Athenaeum; what I think of multiverse. Cookies are moiety at best; a crumbling, half-baked Mob, thr

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Oct 101 min read


The Marionette
You’re the shadow on the floor who’s told to dance. The trot from an orange fox, willing to play the hunt. The hounds all bark at once. A...

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Oct 91 min read


Language Lessons
You muttered under your breath I’m stupido, as though I’m too dumb to know what it means. While I grew up in Little Italy, you say I’m...

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Oct 71 min read


The Auricle
Do not stoop and whisper your affections to my ear. Don’t stroke my bearded chin like I’m a cat, 3 ½ feet away, expect a murmur like a purr when we’re in public. You told me years ago: I don’t do the PDA. Even fingers inter- twined will give us both away. Displays are for the window, the mannequins all a-twist at Rowland Macy’s— faceless, unable to hear the rabble’s lame guffaw— in order to sell some hare- brained Hasbro thing, dots the size of planets to a child— a yell

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Oct 71 min read


Why I will never write another haiku
Basho’s frog was just a toad. Never had a wart in all the years. I mean Basho, not the toad. How can he write of life without the...

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Oct 61 min read


Danger Noodle, or The Eyes of Eva Ross
Nothing is what it seems. You stared at the solar eclipse for twenty minutes, orbs of blue as naked as your birth, their flame like...

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Oct 61 min read


why my history prof told me to get the fuck out of his class
I think he’s bigoted. Complains about the Muslims, the script of Arabic, its use of dots and sickles; unaware we’ve loved its digits...

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Oct 41 min read


Holland, Michigan
Everyone here is racing yellow lights. No one likes to ponder life at reds. The fragility of tulips. The radio’s always playing the same...

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Oct 31 min read


My Failure in Ekphrasis, or The Folly of Robert Frost, or Why I’m Banned from the Vatican
A poet cannot make a magnum opus. It’ll never achieve the stars. Two roads diverged in a wood ? No, trees won’t get it done, and a path’s...

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Oct 31 min read


Les Empiristes
the only way out is in —Junot Díaz After lunch you’re pleading don’t sweep away the whits from the picnic table. Leave them for the...

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Oct 21 min read


Pastѐque, or The Glory of Nonchalant
As we sit upon a bench in Reynolds' Park, you say that I’m indifferent to your pain. Your neuropathy. Autistic bloody savant. Your...

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Oct 11 min read


Thoughts from a Double Driveway
Mr. Play It Safe, was afraid to fly —Alanis Morissette You click away Ironic, hear the morning gab on Radio Wire: Heroes come in varied...

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Oct 11 min read


On the Day of the Orange Shirt
—the 30 th of September They say nothing rhymes with orange. I find that rather strange. Maybe nothing rhymes with truth. Goes with...

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Sep 301 min read


Wings, or Overkill, or The Spirit of ‘76
It’s the proverbial sledgehammer/fly, a Captain Hook who’s gashed by his little itch, his cheek now lined by his lapse of memory. You...

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Sep 291 min read


The Incident, or The Proboscis
Incident is a funny duck of a word. It can mean a clean-up in aisle 7, the spill from a bag of salt. Your fear it will be re- taped, sold with a dollar off. How can you be sure it wasn’t sugar? There’s another “ongoing incident” at school. Eleven mowed down in class. The shooter acting out his manifesto. Bullets darting by like killer bees. The keeper who is stung is just an incident. The wear of her crumpled suit. Bought at TJ Maxx. Perhaps for Hallowe’en. The holes in

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Sep 291 min read
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