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Women & Menexpand_more“The secret to happiness is not wanting,” Lars told the Buddha.
Her bra is black, her breasts full and white. There is too much flesh.
We see how tired you are as you lean on your rifle or your shovel.
At a red light he touches his cheek. The stubbly skin is sensitive, febrile.
Her sentiments maudlin, malaise dripped like a fever from her pores.
I try to imagine him wanting only a Toblerone bar for his birthday.
The three of us share a myth, that I’m fragile as old bones. My parents speak in low voices—about me, I’m pretty sure. I watch the waitress, trying to remember how to flirt. I take off my mask.
He pushed aside a photograph of a man with a knife stuck in his eye.
He cut down on beer and moved into the hotel that had my name.
The golden-haired ones, they think they’re better than Virgin Mary.
“Hey, you look lost,” the hunter had said. “You better come with me.”
You never see Westerners, so you don’t think of them as human beings.
He didn’t mind, he insisted, that he loved her more than she loved him.
Somebody would be a lot happier if she were more like her mother.
Spanish men. They whispered and whistled. It made her jumpy.
My mother and I remained apart. My father came late to the party.
I was dusty, my ponytail all askew and the tips of my fingers ran red.
She asked, “What’s the weirdest thing you can do with your body?”
How do our lives disappear even while we’re in the midst of them?
What’s the harm? Will you fight even the healing powers of love?
I waited and waited, rethinking first sentences in my sleep.
Fatwas condoned our arrest for the rouged contours of our lips.
She’d seen snakes before, but she’d never really looked at one, until now.
Euclid stands in front of his lover’s door, open to the last hours of light.
Our ambition was a clawing, grasping thing. It got us out of bed.
They are glorious pumpkin-skinned messengers. I hate them.
And that girls came to his house all the time, cheap girls from the docks.
Love speaks in silence, on behalf of lovers too tired for words.
She looks down the street for Scott’s truck. He’s late but so is she.
“Who is it?” Irina asked at the door. “Open up,” a voice commanded.
