6.04 / April 2011

I. White on red Oso Negro Vodka Destilado 100% de Grano 38% Alc. Vol. CONT. NET. desde 1940 the black bear, the red halo the abuse of this product is damaging to your health a pale sweat line your brow and red scalp bottled & distributed by Casa Cuervo, S.A de C.V.

[from The New Technical Manual of Use] As I observe a disease, so I catch it and give it lodging in myself. Michel de Montaigne The integumentary system (from Latin integumentum, to cover), or skin, is the body’s largest organ system.

[wpaudio url=”/audio/6_3/logan.mp3″ text=”listen to this story” dl=”0″] Girl #1 She found me with my hands around chickens, fingers stretched wide, thumbs over beaks. My skirt, mud-weighed, tugged at my ankles as I dipped low. Silly to curtsey while armed with birds, I knew, but it had to be done.

[wpaudio url=”/audio/6_4/brown.mp3″ text=”listen to this story” dl=”0″] To best preserve this piece’s original formatting, it is being made available as a PDF for your reading enjoyment.

[wpaudio url=”/audio/6_4/lehew.

[wpaudio url=”/audio/6_4/gardner.mp3″ text=”listen to this story” dl=”0″] I wear a leather jacket in my head. I ride a motorcycle in my head. I snort powders and don’t take showers in my head. Sometimes I sing for an imaginary punk band. Scream through a microphone and vomit onstage.

Mrs. Speaks [wpaudio url=”/audio/6_4/day1.mp3″ text=”listen to this poem” dl=”0″] She stands before a window speaking with a friend, she shifts like compost collapsing beneath a dress in summer heat. On her nose a wreck of warts that glisten in light like elvers.

[wpaudio url=”/audio/6_4/cotrone.mp3″ text=”listen to this story” dl=”0″] Over the phone, a woman I used to see tells me about her nightmares. What do you know about dreaming, I think. “I couldn’t even begin to tell you,” she says. From the bathroom, the washing machine clicks off. “Go ahead,” I say. “Try.

[wpaudio url=”/audio/6_4/fountaine.mp3″ text=”listen to this story” dl=”0″] My brother don’t know it, but he ain’t long for this world.  I’ve been carryin’ him around our whole life, and he ain’t never once carried me.

[wpaudio url=”/audio/6_4/mckennedy.mp3″ text=”listen to this story” dl=”0″] The fragments pulled smoke streamers down the sky, lit in our grass, caught in our tree limbs–smoldering ornaments, ashes, white light.  We rushed out with blankets and fire extinguishers. Enough was enough. We met in the church basement.  We didn’t argue this time.

One is always alone in the Church of Best Guesses. If the Church believed in miracles, this would surely be one of them. But the Church considers it blasphemy to designate anything a miracle, which presumes insight into the mind of God, an impossibility for mortal witnesses to any divine plan, if there is one.

EXPERT ADVICE FOR YOUR BOXING CAREER In a parallel space, you and I are boxing, ring spattered with last night’s blood, the wreck of our loved ones.

Richard stands outside the room with his eyes closed and his head bowed and thinks around the edges of the boy, the back of his neck and his bottom lip and the graceful architecture of his collarbone.  The paint-spotted glass knob is exactly zipper level and he presses against it.

Dear Exclamation Point, It’s hard to listen to you talk. You sound so unsure of everything you say. It’s like every word you speak is you begging for approval.

In the Hotel Room After Our Wedding Tuxedo stained by champagne and butter cream icing, beaded gown now heavy on my ribs,you were careful not to yank as you added more bobby pins to our pile, a mound of metal, how did it hold all this hair up, a smile, fingers dancing, undoing the bridal

PAPER ATROCITIES These days it’s not enough simply to be good in bed.  Afterward you have to get up & try to be good essentially everywhere else too.  Good, essentially, is the new bad.

My wife had a stroke at forty, leaving her unable to express happiness. When poor Irene tried to smile, she exposed just her eye teeth, like little fangs. The doctor said it might be temporary. It wouldn’t have been so bad if she hadn’t been a happy person before.

After shopping at the Big Lots, headed for the car, she sees the child has something in his fist. “What’s this?” she asks, leaning in, his small fingers locked around an artificial flower.

Current Maker You are a Taser gun & I congratulate you- terribly shocking, yes, & there are even ways for you to be lethal- & I take you seriously, though never too much & that’s due to mass- misfire, get crushed. Happy Ending I know what you are thinking.

1. Birth I was born under a sky that poured.  My mother’s water wasn’t the only thing that ran that day; it was raining so hard the ceiling caved in and the windows almost broke.  The streets were flooded and a trip to the hospital was out of the question.

Give a man a boner and he’ll take a mile.

[wpaudio url=”/audio/6_4/darrell.mp3″ text=”listen to this story” dl=”0″] Yesterday afternoon I was lying on my bed flipping through a magazine when a man emerged from the attic.

Underground People I like your loud music. You make it easy to read omens in license plates and furry, pepper-studded rain-heads. There is so much I want to say. Maybe we should stop. Have something to eat instead.

They’ve just finished. They’re putting themselves back together, smoothing their clothes and hair. His is the color of dead leaves; hers the ruddy meat of a fig. They brush their teeth using the same brush, something she does not usually do.