Authors

Today is my favorite kind of day. Night opens, light concedes.

All I know is not in front of me, my sweet angels.

What do you offer someone who has lost half of her beginning?

I read that poem twice, didn’t I? I must have wanted to hear it again.

If dating taught Cory anything, it was that he needed an ex-wife.

What small song do you sing under your breath that is only for you?

The baby won’t sleep until 2 a.m., not until he poops and throws up.

Why is the sun such a bad companion to the desert traveler?

After having been riddled with stars: I lost the light that was lost.

I couldn’t love the tree in every soul shouldering its own tiny autumn.

I thought that if we built a big family our house would be full of life.

He didn’t want us tracking whether Betsy’s hair was up or down.

It changes nothing. It’s nasty shit, and you’ve gotta get clean.

“Ten lo,” she says when you’ve finished. Have it.

They couldn’t go to the Manson family caves because of nuclear radiation.

A small circle of friends and family babysat so she could go to school.

“I might surprise you,” Mr. Maxi said. Polly hoped he’d go all out.

It was to keep us impartial and to protect us from threats and bribes.

Maybe he was preparing for a disaster that would never happen.

The appendix on political correctness explains why none of that is funny.

She was gone then, inaudible, steeple-reticent, demure as sky.

A high roller gave her money to stay in his room for the weekend.

She had yellow cat eyes that she insisted were also blond.

I usually get my best writing done at night or at the close of day.

I used to be known for the humor of my music, the lightness of touch.

Howard found himself dancing the merengue with a buxom Puerto Rican.

He was alongside without preamble. Elephants are not stealthy by nature.

I'll pick a black card of luck for you: star, pinkmoon, mirror, ostrich eye.

I was dusty, my ponytail all askew and the tips of my fingers ran red.

The sight of her belly ring and the smooth, tight canopy of flesh.

The pillow into which her face was turned muffled her voice.

Phuong feared that she was nothing but a regret born into flesh.

A child no bigger than small change calls from her window j’ai faim.

I roam the dirt with the law in my teeth, a widower in search of a widow.

I ask if you are all right until you can be nothing but not all right, not okay.

Grandfather advised me: learn a trade. I learned to sit at a desk.

Even this says nothing of your desire—to be put to use.

We work to house the water yet know we cannot keep anything.

I can already feel the stone’s resistance as I work the first pass.

Window widows we were once, like lonely oil spilled on sullied beaches.

Barbra Nightingale

Barbra Nightingale

The dugout boats kissing the shoreline have ferried us into open markets. Girl, you call me in time, where this too can be forgotten. The hands that made them asking for more things in dim light.

Sit beside me. Old country, I am hopeful and troubadour.

My soul’s parts know little and don’t care whether I live or die.

May the dice throw their combinations at night. May it be June then July.

Evangeline thinks of the forged double-bit whistling through the air.

A town, wholly unknown to him until yesterday; he’s now unwrapped.

The dead children were wheeled away, covered with white sheets.

The guards ripped off Mara’s clothes, pinning her head against the wall.

A friend said she hated the State of Israel because it killed her cat.

Give him a bottle of red wine. You’ll be his best friend right away.

The tree was shaggy and it bore scars of shrapnel from the war.

If you let me live, I will buy you beer whenever I see you in town.

Ever since she believed he was cheating, she felt erotically obsessed.

Enjoy the prison. It’s very impressive, worth spending some time!

His beauty comes from his power. I am as wary as I am drawn to it.

It is right that tears fall for something small and forgotten. And I would never scold the onion for causing tears.

Always know the creative life begins again and again.

She was so happy they were going to save her from the city of Dallas.

I arrange your five deflating basketballs under the lonely net.

“How is it fair that you know who I am but I have to guess about you?”

You locate the green outline of the state your cousins are inside of now.