Kindergarten Lesson Plan You do not have to have a handmade heartto put on every desk in February.You do not have to subject yourselfto something less than emptywhen you look on your desk to finda single box of chalky fake writing heartsor nothing at all. You do not have to invite thirty peopleinto your small […]

Hiding Places The fingers of the fir treeI named Thomasout in the backyard. A table in the cornerwith a beer and an open tabwatching everyone watchthe people singing in the bright lights. The closet in the laundry roomsmelling my mother’s dresseslistening to footsteps thunder ondown the hallway. A screen showing mesomeone else’s story,as if it […]

Ways that Falling in Love Makes You More Creative With Language They challenge youthe way salt water challenges open sores. You work through itthe way a father works through the one weekendhis children are visiting. They are differentthe way life after a lobotomy is different. You learn independencethe way the tiny pink shoe on the sidewalkis […]

Why She is Crying When she looks at himshe sees a bright red woundhe does not seem to notice he winceswhenever he speaks he clings to her so tightly that she wonders if she made itdeeperevery time she breathed she cannot breathewithout feeling guilty she is alonewith a wailing childhe cannot see her armsare so […]

Thoughts on Silence 1. I remember reading that once you go from observing a conversation to participating in it,half of it is lost to you. The sound of your own voice ripples your vision, warps the picturebefore you. Your thoughts thicken like concrete. Certainty seduces you. You begin to forget how much you did not […]

Reasons He Thinks She is Crying She was having a nightmarebefore he woke her. She is too attached to the little boy who is sick.She wants him to be ok.She is tired. She feels too much.She thinks too much aboutwhat she is feeling.She went to a poetry reading.She still reads her ex’s blog.She looks for […]

The Unnamed I wonder if she is jealous of widows,who have a wordthat can describe the shade of lossthey have been stained. I wonder if she stands in his doorwaytrying to read it in the bars of his crib,the neatly folded shirtshe would soon outgrow, the windows fullof dusty velvet light.It is not morningbut the […]