panfollicular epilogue

at long last I am a “Porcelain Ivory” replica  (makeup shade #1, the palest,  does it cover the pink, puckered skin to my mother’s liking?) A Roman plastic surgeon’s hand’s copy of the Greek original  and I stand at attention in your bathroom,  Aphrodite, naked but for my context.   were I to mount the […]

the big dipper

i. we plateaued in the middle of the night in oregon. the car was working okay but you were losing steam. meanwhile the love of my life sat by a riverbed in california.   ii. you’re probably reading this by accident the boy i love is an art piece, a flat weave textile we keep […]

unwound

along your heel, my stitches still mark where your shadow clings. they are raised and ugly things, more scar tissue than thread, pink: it was the only color I had. I trace my indelicate attempt at embroidery with fingers still clumsy, still wondering. I wanted to make art of you, but I mucked it up, […]

Daphne

They came over the hill like a parade, skipping and jumping to the rhythmic stamp of their small feet on the earth. Their days were spent flitting in and out of the old wooden cabin at the peak of the hill for meals, showers, an afternoon game of kickball. They were The Lost Boys, drunk […]

Keeping Distance

I was too young to know, and I craved a hopeless closeness that the water-sunken earth couldn’t bestow. The slanted shade pressed out a depth of hedge, while below, the endless velvet petals and lamb’s ears I pressed   in my palms were a maddening, heartsick test: holding each one, I could not bear to […]