It was a weekday, a weekday that saw most grownups of the world working, earning, rearing children, driving cars and carpools, paying bills, mortgages, taxes, a weekday when husbands I knew trusted their wives and those wives trusted their husbands with their infants and toddlers, with mealtime, with bath time, on the changing table, with putting the baby to sleep, a weekday when I was one of those wives
I was more puzzled by the fact that the family acted as if this was normal. The father politely waited for his two kids to climb in next to me. I scooted over so I was on the edge of the crescent-shaped booth. The mother squeezed in and the father followed. He nodded at me and then grabbed a menu.
“What’s good here?” he asked.
Look, I've known warmth
That means so
Much more than
Heat. I've kissed someone
I thought might die
That day.
“It doesn’t look much different from the one I have. Come and look,” Brian said as he carried it to the car. He laid the dried-out jacket on the roof and found his folded up on the backseat. He laid it on the roof beside the one from the mill. “What if this was his jacket?”
“The ghost’s jacket?”
“Yeah, why not?”
she points to the
spots on her thighs
sneak to the bathroom
use up her foundation
pound my pores
into submission
I’ve suffered a few whacks. The doctors call them strokes. But I remain committed to my lifelong poem and celebrate the final edition that supersedes all. Truth be, I’d much rather have a mud bath followed by an immersion in a cold spring. That is my ease.
When you hear her alarm go off, run to get the dog and whisper ‘We have to get the hell outta here!’ Dash to the car and sit still together while the engine warms. If you hear a whippoorwill, and feel the pink streaked sky cloud your mind, and the overhead light melts and drips into your coffee mug, then you are ready to be dragged through the woods by a fifteen-pound terrier who refuses to learn to fly
I hold a dead wasp by its left wing
and place it in the trash, its gentle
ruin the middle of a pile of
kleenex.
The ancient green taxi reappeared in my peripheral vision, vanishing once again before I could be certain it had ever been there. Was the filmy web between the past and present dissolving? Would she be gone in an instant? Or would we both be suddenly transported to the streets of a New York where certain death awaited her? And possibly even me?
I picked up an Ataenius beetle from the fifth green and dropped it into his palm. He just stared at it. I explained, tiny as it was, the damage their root-feeding larvae could do. I showed him where the tips of the bentgrass had already yellowed. Soon the plants would die, leaving a bare spot, bad for play and an invitation for weeds.
FILM / Special To Me: Phantom of the Paradise Fan Essay / Hannah Cohen
Phantom of the Paradise rewired me. Electrified me. This movie is, in the words of Jessica Harper’s character Phoenix, “special to me.”
No one to converse with either,
So I chat with myself, contrive tales
Of all the extraordinary things I’ll do…
One day.
Here under this dresser huddled against the baseboards we will find a calm existing both private and exposed.
a moon (not landing)—a space race it’s a
crypto-hyperloop underground place it’s A.D. hyperactivity
disorder N.F.T.’s New Order
It can be assumed that you, the reader, have likely not traversed a catacomb by candlelight, but you likely are aware that catacombs tend to wind and are likely to leave you incredibly lost. This is even more true when you don’t know where you are going.
Three papasans to my left, my rival, Warren, is squirming behind an oversized picture book about dinosaurs. Warren plays on the travel soccer team and acts as if this makes him part of the Holy Family. Yesterday, he told Miss Viki she had beautiful eyes. She blushed and thanked him, but inside was probably thinking: what a nothing boy.
First, he set the table. White porcelain plates, sterling silver flatware, fresh white cloth napkins, and a glass at each setting. One by one, he gingerly carried each family member to the oval wooden dining room table, ignoring their pungent odor, and engaging them all in light conversation.
Lyle was the real deal. He had been a Vietnam Green Beret, broke wild horses in his spare time, and was one of the very few people left in the world who still knew how to drive a four-horse stagecoach. He looked me up and down. “You ain’t from Montana.”