He makes violent love to his Russian lover. He likes his women thick – half gallon thick. Their kisses are deep and long as he tongues her mouth and licks the juice from her rim. Unabashed, they screw in public, in the car on the way to work, in their living room when visitors are there, in a gas station bathroom stall while our father pisses in the other stall, in between presents on Christmas morning, in the moment of silence during our conversations, or in his waking hours: 3:00 P.M. Tue...

Shaving, I cut myself several times on the base. (This is the hair she detested the most.) The curly scraps disappeared down the drain, leaving no trace of what I waited so long for, when I was younger. I was a boy again. Like the young boy in the shower at camp with six A.M. seclusion tugging his bathing suit down quickly lathering his diminutive penis, when they ripped back the curtain and pelted him with water balloons yelling, “BAL-DY! BAL-DY!” The first sprout grew in the reflection ...

One night last spring we walked out onto the dock to watch the phosphorescence play in the lapping tide on the riprap. Between two boards below our feet we glimpsed a faint green glow. We laid down flat on our bellies and peered over into the black brackish mirror. Buried under our reflection was a flock of underwater birds, glowing skate, florescence tracing their flapping wings. Dim silhouettes defined by the blank space of the dark river. There must have been twenty, haloed in muted green...

I was allowed to play in the stream below the cow pasture across the street from my house everyday after school in the spring until the street lights came on; but, I could see the light on the corner of the street from the crest of the hill above my stream; so, I’d run between the bank and the crest every so often to see whether I was in trouble yet; but, I’d always stay longer than I was supposed to and turn over the rocks in the water until the light was too dim to expose the tiny crawf...

the brown locks occasionally ruled with silver, sift down my draped black curtain to the lip and settle in to the blond tufts of the previous patron as the self- proclaimed motorcycle man jibes the black woman who buzzes his buzz cut while he playfully threatens to stiff her on the $9 cut -- the scissors snip so close to my ear, I feel the chink of the metal, glance at my reflection and at the bulky chest behind me and back to the floor, not wanting her to feel my eyes on hers the motorcycle ...

At Grandmother’s Christmas party We kept track of Mom’s drinks On an abacus. Elders encircled the infants Warming their hands At the bonfire of youth. The tree was larger than last year’s. Grandmother smaller, Grandfather dead Does anybody know How to work the Stereo?

Whack! Whack! Whack! The alarm clock hammer pounds me out of a 7:00 cold sweat nightmare 1400 miles from home and in the woods. "Someone must be trapped outside the dorm," I think in my sleepy fog. Which is silly because our decrepit tenement is like a sieve. You can barely keep out the trees. I jump to attention and run to the door only to find a burly Vermonter nailing strips of molding to the jamb around our front door. “This‘ll keep the skeeters ut,” he garbles at me as I gaze, stan...

Gone one week. I miss your weight next to me at night. Unanchored six times, awakened on the ceiling, cold sweat dripping down onto our sheets. Longed seven days to feel your heat beneath me, a thousand tiny droplets connecting us through the damp electric fur on your torso. Inched seven days along my path knowing there is no need to rush because you will not be there.

Kissing Carrion Let us go then, to the highway feast to watch the carrion’s playful dance, the pecking of beaks, pawing of claws, ripping of fur. Stiff legs in a graceful embrace with gnashing teeth and dripping tongues, kissing and chewing lifeless lips. Let us hear the brood rustle from their summer slumber joining the picnic by the on-ramp. Buzzing flies plant seeds of immortality in the taut trunk, crooked joints, sockets and lungs. Let us breathe deep the youthful elixir of spilled int...

Dancing in Broken English She floated down the beach. The sun cascaded through her legs silhouetting her thighs through her sinuous skirt. I stuttered an American grin as she hovered by; she smiled back in Spanish and stopped in the silent sand between our mouths. That night’s murky air of Arica1, damp with midnight and music, churned through the streets and over our hand’s mute whisper. We surged through the melodies, she closed her eyes and squeezed my waist, spinning in circles through...