6.08 / July 2011
Strip
We created an e-chapbook of Strip for your reading enjoyment. You can download the chapbook here.
Two Poems
Children with Lamps Pouring out of Their Foreheads
Descend into the fact mine. We are here because
we failed fifth grade, we could not pass the bone unit,
we tried to pry up “greenstick fracture†and pried
“greenhouse fracture†up instead, it seemed logical
at the time, we saw panes of glass bursting [...]
Eleven Poems
Walgreens
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“I am hairless! Thank you drugstore!†She walks with a certain kind of pomp. “The yacht is calling,†she says. (Draped with silk and Swarovskis?) “The yacht is a stand-in,†she says. This is the beginning of a journey! (As usual, she wants to know how it [...]
Three On the Road
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Pull Over
I remember each exit we passed that sun-scorched afternoon. My hand on your thigh, your nails dug into my arm when I drove close to other cars. I pulled over, each hungry; the tree’s gracious shade; my reflection in your sunglasses, your screams and moans, [...]
Get Well Rose
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You talk to yourself a lot these days. Have you noticed that? The phone rings. It’s mom as usual. Same day, same time, every week. You haven’t picked up the phone in five months. Each time she calls, you send out a blank postcard. Always the same [...]
Two Poems
ELEGY FOR THE ANALOG SELF
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i had a system for drawing maps of rome:
all the roads led there & i roamed them
smearing concentric routes across
like the petals of an absurdly placed lotus
i would like to fold myself
in the dove wings of myself
in the dub gestures my double makes:
i [...]
Becoming Deer
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I want to explain.
No longer do I hunger for the familiar comforts: the meaty stews and steaks, the milk.
Like hiding a pill beneath the tongue, I retreat to the privacy of my bedroom and pour the warm milk into the narrow gap between the mattress and the [...]
Three Poems
Harlequin Does a Handstand
all phrases from Harlequin American Romance #795
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Cole, I am on fire.
Raquel nearly screamed in frustration,
dusted his chest and tapered downward.
The world: a sprinkle of dark hair
enough to carry the weight of
his virile body. His shoulders were broad.
Raquel drank in the sight of
a wind-swept [...]
Origins of Winter
1.
We Meet
I am the honey-limbed girl dropping wet petals
along the path, careless with beauty in the way
of the young; suggestive. Before dusk settles
in the cleft of distant hills, I weigh
my options: return home before dark,
or watch slow clouds like servants lay
a ruby into the arms of trees, a spark
reddening sweetly [...]
Michael Stipe’s Orgasm Imagined As A Predetermined Terrorist Attack on the United States of America
When Michael Stipe is fucking me I will whisper the words fuck me kitten because “Automatic For the People†was the first CD I ever bought when I was 8 years old. Three days a week I wake up with a boner and I instantly start thinking about Michael Stipe [...]
from Promising Young Women: Heather (#19)
This wasn’t like in the movie Heathers, which had come out a few years earlier. We watched it over and over again. It was something we did. Back then, I hadn’t read Ariel. In the movie, Ariel is a punchline; Sylvia Plath is a joke. This was before I’d learned [...]
Something
it was the unexpectedness of our music
the way the stars withdrew
when i walked you to the subway
the city hissed in time
Three Poems
If you don’t eat, how can you love?
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They had both lost
so much weight.
His melon shoulders
and rope swing neck
dwindled to boney outlines.
Her summer hips
whittled to the shape
of a wooden spoon.
By October, all that sex
had been skimmed away
like gravy going down a drain.
The day they butchered
the hens, the [...]
6,000 miles apart, which is more in kilometers.
i’m missing you like as though you lived on the side of a milk carton. i’m dreaming about singing, “if i was your girlfriend,†a wtf? written by prince, to you, while we, ride camels, through the fat middle of a k-mart, in iowa. i’m in this dream that probably [...]
Two Poems
I GIVE YOU A ROOM, YOU WILL MAKE OF IT SOMETHING
It’s a mail slot for delivering messages
to your doppelganger. It’s a portal
to another dimension in which you and
everyone you know are made of
balsa wood and held together with
glue. It is not so far from the truth.
It is a wound in [...]
Remarks My Immigrant Mother Has Made About Babies
Supposedly that baby is smiling; his mouth becomes one line. Supposedly he is satisfied with himself. What does he have to be satisfied about? The nose is too wide in the middle.
She didn’t want her mother; she only wanted to come to me. She came into my arms and looked [...]
The Vampire Tries at Last to Read Twilight on a Cross-Country Flight
First: a continent of rain. Clouds bruise belly of shimmying jet. Knuckles whiten. Words blur, focus impossible. Every story gets it wrong about you: there’s little shame in fear of dying. It’s the living that slices and crawls and undoes. The couple across the aisle battle The New York Times [...]
Piano Hands
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Smoking cigarettes draws attention to my crooked fingers. I’ve been so stupid. My mother says I used to have piano hands. My fingers were long and thin and delicate as the veins in a frog’s throat. The last time I saw my mother, she made fun of [...]
The Virtues of Being Mary
listen to this story as read by Jane Koh
charity in a pair of secondhand shoes
Mary Vo received a pair of maroon loafers for her tenth birthday. Each shoe had a slit on the patent leather, and each slit held a shiny penny. Mary’s mother made her don the shoes and [...]
Night Person on a Big Morning Holiday Train
Collect ideas for the morning that won’t let you sleep. Collect ideas for the end of the passage through the porcelain cup. Call it paper. A paper cup. Dirtied with boiled black coffee streamed and sputtered from the coffee beak in the lounge car. Dirty coffee, d d d d [...]
Uses For a Uterus
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Let me tell you about the rat I keep in my uterus. He stores cotton balls, faux feathers, and little pink beads in me to make the perfect nest. I use these in my crafts. My uterus is squishy, and he has a fun time in there [...]
Valley Girl Meets Goldfish
At the school carnival
she won three goldfish
bearing them home
in a wire handled carton
once reserved
for Chinese takeout.
Cleaning the dimestore fishbowl
in the kitchen sink
fish one flopped to the drain
then disappeared
fish two overfed exploded
fish three blooming
with optimism
having lived seven days
was devoured by Muffin
the family cat.
This cautionary tale
suggests that goldfish should
like stay away from [...]
Two Stories
Purple Math
To unravel a word problem is to get rid of what you do not need to solve it. To translate a recipe is to venture into a forest of herbs and tubers that will stain your fingertips. To render love means to speak in tongues and [...]
The Tiger Below
The tiger below me is emerging from the waterfall. The shadows fall across you, the light falls against you. We have tried to clean the rabbits. We’ve tried to splinter their sumptuous muscles in preparation for the dinner plate. I am among the trees, daily, and I do not always [...]