6.06 / June 2011

Your Big Dick Can’t Save You Now [wpaudio url=”/audio/6_6/Kearnes1.mp3″ text=”listen to this story” dl=”0″] It’s entirely your fault. There’s no question in your cracked-out mind. The meth, the gay porn with underage European boys, the fact neither of you made it to the bedroom before ravishing one another.

House Fire [wpaudio url=”/audio/6_6/Helms1.mp3″ text=”listen to this story” dl=”0″] Michael is four years old and his brother is seven years old and there is a fire. It’s summer. Michael is half the size of his brother. They are both only wearing underwear.

PRIMARY VOTERS [wpaudio url=”/audio/6_6/Poyner1.mp3″ text=”listen to this poem” dl=”0″] They were the boys who thought Your older sister might make a good Piece of ass. Two of them Broke your cousin’s leg, on purpose, To settle the matter of who told On the shoplifters.

[wpaudio url=”/audio/6_6/Foster.mp3″ text=”listen to this story” dl=”0″] Here’s the elephant, scooping her trunk across the earth. Here’s the girl, in a dress, scooping peanut shells from around the elephant’s feet. Here’s the banker, fucking the girl from behind. Here’s the banker’s wife, tapping her Coach heels in the dirt, moving her sunglasses onto her head.

[wpaudio url=”/audio/6_6/Baboon.mp3″ text=”listen to this story” dl=”0″] They said he was a baboon. They said he was ugly and hairy and that he smelled, but I was drawn to him immediately.

Robot Christ climbs down from the cross. The Romans are all gone. It is dark on the hill in the cave beneath New Jerusalem. The artificial stars twinkle. Tomorrow the largest, his own star, will bloom above the animatronic shepherds. The plastic cattle will bray and froth.

Hunting I slide restless into an up north bar, all fake wood grain and flickering beer signs, audition for an overnight haul that will pound the pain out of me. Look for loggers, measure them by the damage they can deal.

When the Girls Arrived in Copenhagen and left the station, near midnight, snow fell in soft piles on their hats and backpacks. No cars or people passed while they walked down the hushed streets.

[wpaudio url=”/audio/6_6/Skolfield.mp3″ text=”listen to this poem” dl=”0″] The rooms now closets, black as the handles of spades pushing their rude darkness into every conversation. Engineers make widgets that alert oncoming deer to cars or oncoming cars to deer: either way, the one gracefully steers out of the path of the other.

On Sunday We Bathed In Rose Water On Monday we counted each egg before poking holes in the shells. You poured the yolk in my mouth and I fed you grits like you were a baby bird, my tongue your spork.

I came home drunk and we lit ourselves on fire. We were such flammable creatures then. The neighbors must have heard us, burning up all the oxygen in our little apartment, suffocating ourselves with big, loud words. The cops encouraged you to stay the night with a friend.

If it doesn’t stop snowing will we miss the beginning? If we miss the beginning and if the beginning is what matters should we encourage the snow and say sorry it was the snow? If the groom gave better directions would we be there already and would the boy stop crying and would we not

Right from the start, Cris was pretty certain she could get me pregnant. It started on our honeymoon-a six day trip to Vegas where we stayed at the Venetian, ate at the Paris and drank all night at New York, New York.

i lived four doors down from a pre-teen equestrian called lauren, who had dozens of little prize ribbons stuck on a corkboard in her pastel and frilly bedroom i’d envy the ribbons and think to myself what pretty prizes how does she get them i want them (at this point in my life the only

There were four empty tins of peppermint Altoids in the cup holders in Mandy’s 4-runner. On her center island in the kitchen, an empty tin of cinnamon. On the back of the toilet in the en suite, another tin of peppermint. You could find one in just about every room of the house.

Saussure, sorry I AM NOT A STRUCTURALIST I DO NOT LIKE MY LANGUAGE RIGOROUS OR SELF-REFERENTIAL. TEXT TELLS ME WHAT TO TASTE WHEN I EAT YOU FOR BREAKFAST. THE VERB HAS NEVER CONFESSED ITSELF TO ME. THE VERB IS ICON. THE VERB WANTS ME LISTEN AND STOP CHEWING ON YOUR HIP.

Vanishing Points [wpaudio url=”/audio/6_6/Boyker1.mp3″ text=”listen to this poem” dl=”0″] Because the absence of prettiness can lead to invisibility, she bit a clean circle in the flesh around her wrists, ringed in red wells, used her teeth for the degloving veins and sinews tucked neatly under bone in love with her own blood.

[wpaudio url=”/audio/6_6/Borges.mp3″ text=”listen to this story” dl=”0″] My son leaves flakes of his skin around the house in piles, mica-like mounds deposited on the arm of the sofa, the corner of the kitchen table, the rim of the bathroom sink, the top drawer of the nightstand. Filial detritus. We sleep in the same bed still.

1. Casts I once knew a girl who kept breaking bones. I once knew a girl who dreamed of breaking every bone in her body. I knew a girl who learned the names of each bone in her foot so she could break them one by one.