Vol. 2, No. 3 Contents

The enamel market isn't what it used to be. And with the cost of raw materials up through the roof, I don't know how much longer I can stay in this business. Profit margins can only shrink so much, you know.

Twenty minutes until my brother's wedding and I'm drunk and my mouth is hot and thick with vomit.

Ellie, barefooted, has just stepped on a wasp. She doesn't feel it at first—not for the quick pangs of summer heat radiating off the gravel drive—but soon an ache travels up her leg and she lets out a shriek…

Five years ago, my dad died.

Another summer Tuesday and I'm aimless,

sleepy in the dry backyard, mind occupied

by dreams of blotter acid and sodomy. When I

try to sit up, chest tingling where the heat baked it…

Moths, crumpled scraps of beige-brown velvet,

discard themselves randomly

on the porch's chipped paint,

earnestly settling their brown wings.

Nothing reluctant, the singing,

the kissing, the blind

love in rhythm,

in sync with…

The blood stain on the chair

in our bedroom at the four-star hotel

does not bother me.

This is the box I am putting you in:

Clamorous piano.

Vegetarian meathead…

She's queasy over orange juice

and muffin batter rising

while shots of booze

she can't recall names for…

you are the urinal

in which men piss infidelity

when wives demur sex

Hey, Richard,

the rug

got dirty…

It's the last box, the last chair,

the last look at the place—

the history shared with four walls,

a roof, a floor.

In the twilight of things, pressed up against the acres of glass, with our bodies beneath: we walked to the place where the deer had woven themselves into the trees. The grass mounded white, the light receding.

After days of silent glow, nearing the kneaded air and pacing out the things that I wanted to say, I saw you—we met—like two birds along the paths by the water, between which was haze and wood.