L.A. Man: Profiles from a Big City and a Small World
The O. Henry Prize Stories 2016
We Dropped a Bomb on You: The Best of Slake I-IVGlue
Broken like what? A still day? A rippled night? Wings, water, windows? A banished tooth in a deer’s leg? Like syntax, Innocent, illegal and knowing, That’s been knocked onto the floor To be swept up later? Broken beyond what? Money, conversation, messages, white couches on beige carpet, discovery, case studies, journals – personal and peer-reviewed, […]
Chicken of the Sea, Part III: Return
A warm breeze rushes Across shallow water Your skin bleeds Like a daughter The sea you said Is from where You came They dug you out You got your name The salt formed the sand The sand made your locks The girl in your heart Put your heart in a box Before me you hover […]
Chicken of the Sea, Part Two: Desert Crossing
The words fell out of the sky Like bullets or frogs… Name your poison Everyday a new gift From a different horizon How mysteries grew Like moss from dew In the middle earth Between us Intrigue to intrigued If you don’t mind me saying The music and the melody Wrung from the strings you were […]
Night Swimming
Was today Saturday? I asked someone at the end of the day He didn’t know either These things don’t matter so much in LA where one day runs into the next and time is as hard to divide as air Never fear my dear Saturday will come when it’s good and ready Like your freeway […]
Mutts
The guy on my couch has been kicked out by his wife He deserved it I suppose The way all men do See, we’ll keep putting those straws On the camel’s back Until we’re told not to But we’re never told Until it’s too late Is that our fault? I suppose He has a dog […]
Chicken of the Sea, Part One: Urban Myth
I thought you were mulatto Or at least a Latina Because I don’t remember Ever before Seeing hair like a waterfall Or an ass like dance floor On a white girl, anyway But then came your eyes Reptile green and too ready To start a war or a cyclone Like Salome Or some other femme […]
Pie
I don’t know if it really happened or how I still see the light on their smiles as they danced under the tree in your backyard where we did play with the balls and bikes on that beautiful day There you were at the grill turning the tenderloin so we’d have our fill Laughing with […]
Driving
Driving south on the 110 The moon is full Jets come in over the San Gabriel Mountains like embers from the dying Station Fire My car feels like skin, like something essential, that I was born in I weave in and out of traffic moving very fast ‘cause I can drive like a motherfucker I […]
Ants
These ants on my back patio are on the march somewhere to be something to do in line in order poised purposeful they are up to no good, obviously anything this well-coordinated can only be wicked like a suit, or the bourgeois they will get results
