After a night of applied malevolence and malfeasance, vigorous and almost strenuous peripatetic activity, hours of hair-sprung seething and cringing over ruined and missed opportunities, Mr. Edward Hyde looked well spent as the sun woke to blink into his face through the narrow spaces between the tenements in the distance. Whenever his face appeared drawn, a steady observer could perceive, his thick bristly eyebrows would each twitch toward the other.
Mr. Hyde was sprawled all over a park bench: arms stretched over and behind the bench’s back, feet and legs stretched wide apart, heels dug an inch or more into the damp dirt, chest alternately heaving silently or with a low wheeze, his haggard bristly face dropped back, eyes mostly shut and horribly bloodshot under their swollen lids.… ...continue reading
“You, brother, are appointed,” the figure calls. It has materialized before the homeless encampment on the youth baseball field. It raises two fingers high, then dips them toward the top of Larry’s head as if tipping a ball through the air. Though fifteen feet away on the sidewalk, Larry jerks back.
“You, brother, are anointed,” the man continues, in a deep and ringing voice, and the crown of Larry’s head feels suddenly damp and sticky under the thinning gray hair.
Sheila lunges to the end of her leash, barking at the guy. Larry has to jerk her back, and when he looks up again the figure is gone. Vanished into the not-so-thin air surrounding the tents and porta-potties and lawn chairs and trash.
This happens at 10:13 on a weekday morning, during Larry’s fourth canine outing of the day.… ...continue reading
I went to work at the prison
as I do every day.
I aid incarcerated women
with their education.
This day, I saw smoke
rising across the street.
Firetrucks were flashing—
men were in the street and yard.
I did not stay for too long—
I had a busy day ahead.… ...continue reading
Love, leftover in the
refrigerator night: 4 A.M —
The machines still
in my bones.
Old dirty lace – snapped!
Steel-yard rain,
hot-coiled smoke,
smell of septic
talk, talk, talk
to stay awake.… ...continue reading
“That’s what it does,” Maddie said, as they snaked their way through the crowd of cotton candy and sawdust. “Capitalism ruins everything. Who says the circus needed audience participation? They’ve been doing fine for centuries without VIP wristbands.”
Stella looked at her in that wry, amused way adults do, the expression that acknowledged a level of precocity while insisting on superiority over it.
“Well, we can always trade in our VIP wristbands for the regular ones.”
“No, no, that’s not what I mean,” Maddie said. She hated when people brought banal realities into an ideological rant. “It’s just that social media has fried our brains so much that we can’t stand to sit back and observe without demanding some level of participation. It’s sick. It’s covert narcissism.”… ...continue reading
Eto stirs his coffee slowly and with his left hand. Eto is what he goes by now—the remnant of a grander name that has been whittled down against the contours of many grating decades. Like sawdust, the powdery traces of the past settle in a fine layer over the polish of his navy blue suit.
Here you are, dwarfed by the enormity of this man. He is slight but tall, narrow-faced with full features, looking ever-so graceful as the sun dips behind his shoulder and embalms the sheen of his midnight-blue skin in gold. You shift in your chair and squint, still clutching the cassette tape recorder you’ve set on the center of the table. Eto has to lean in to make himself heard above the din and clink of the diners around you.… ...continue reading
Is gone.
She was probably on her way out, even, the many times you chose to ignore the raging fire behind her thinly-veiled mist. Who could’ve thought?
Who could’ve thought that of what you thought was likely a storm that would pass with the night, clear up by the crack of the dawn, would leave no trace of her by morning?
‘Let bygones be bygones,’ some say. But hard though it is to not reminisce about your times together; hard – to just give in to it like that. You sift through the memories and latch on to the bad ones; admittedly, there weren’t many of the other kind.
‘Aargh!’ you scream in frustration, ‘God!’… ...continue reading