6.12 / October 2011

[wpaudio url=”/audio/6_10/Smith.mp3″ text=”listen to this story” dl=”0″] Houston was forty-two and going to seed. He had gray in his hair and mustache, and his mother, when complimenting him, had stopped calling him handsome and had switched to “distinguished.” For the first time in his life, he felt old, and by consequence, a little bit frightened.

[wpaudio url=”/audio/6_10/Groner.mp3″ text=”listen to this story” dl=”0″] True, an oak smashed the roof, and mice cracked the cinder foundation, but, Sonny, aren’t you bored of balancing checks? Your brow’s furrowed, your eyes, puffed.

[wpaudio url=”/audio/6_10/Khadan.mp3″ text=”listen to this poem” dl=”0″] after & for Roger Bonair-Agard Dear Roger, I’m laying on the sweetest stomach this side of Newark on a Saturday night trying to listen to her insides when I notice The History of Church Music sitting cool on the other side of the bed.

[wpaudio url=”/audio/6_10/Vollmer.

[wpaudio url=”/audio/6_10/Snee.mp3″ text=”listen to this story” dl=”0″] Ninibe was flipping through a positively ancient magazine when the doorbell finally rang.  Now she was nervous.  She got up and checked herself in the mirror; like always, the face and the body she had would have to do.

[wpaudio url=”/audio/6_10/Walker.mp3″ text=”listen to this poem” dl=”0″] I.

[wpaudio url=”/audio/6_10/Norman.mp3″ text=”listen to this story” dl=”0″] And it was one of those summers. One of those summers that comes around every once in awhile with plenty of sun and heat and long days but somehow the nights felt even longer. And it was one of those summers about shared experiences.

The Departure [wpaudio url=”/audio/6_10/Fang1.mp3″ text=”listen to this poem” dl=”0″] In winter, we pull on long underwear, flesh colored and bulky under white socks tucked snugly in around the ankles. Thermoses full of hot water line up like nutcrackers while ice bent the pipes overnight.

[wpaudio url=”/audio/6_10/Lamb.mp3″ text=”listen to this story” dl=”0″] I We ride in the back of your parent’s car, watching the buildings get farther and farther apart. Our parents think we’re friends. I never said so, but I haven’t been your friend since sports camp last year.

[wpaudio url=”/audio/6_10/Humphrey.mp3″ text=”listen to this poem” dl=”0″] Both thirty-two but looking younger than our years, we make a cute couple as we wander artificial living rooms and kitchens, poking fingers through denim belt loops, testing out loveseats, wondering if other shoppers invent stories about us.

Marlon’s Fingers Still lookin’ for’em, you joked a year ago, the first time my eyes locked on your fingers, the little that’s left of them: ring and index clipped at the knuckle; thumb missing part of its tip; pinky severed altogether. The middle untouched, a gesture kept at the ready. My face lit with shame.

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.

We can’t all help but feel a little disappointed that Dave Ogilvie isn’t here with us. This is the 2001 Reunion tour after all, but as devoted fans of Skinny Puppy we were hoping for an appearance by its onetime member and longtime producer. We don’t know him or anything. But we’re purists, you see.

I Touch Myself [wpaudio url=”/audio/6_10/Vuong.mp3″ text=”listen to this poem” dl=”0″] I touch myself in the dark as a plane hums above, pregnant with death. I touch myself as starlight sparkles on the surface of falling bombs. I reach down, searching for warmth, something to hold and believe in. I reach down, searching for music.

In November of 1997 Corinthia Davidson got a letter from the Welfare telling her she had to come down and see them. She got up early on her scheduled day, and walked down the boulevard. The air was cold as the side of a metal shed.

La Chupacabra Returns In Form Of Kitchen Appliance [wpaudio url=”/audio/6_10/Shea1.mp3″ text=”listen to this poem” dl=”0″] Gobbling bones beneath the sink. Then you will be redeemer, you will be the whirl of the garbage disposal. Broken wineglass on the coffee table. You held it in your hands and then it wasn’t.

THE TOMATOES ARE CHOKING   in the grass and the sun beats down on us with our wrong names and bowlegs and our faces depressed and angry for too many reasons  no one can name them all and no one understands how it is for you except that it is the same for them we chew our

After the divorce, you don’t want to see anyone.  You don’t want to talk.  You want to take your broken heart and put it on a raft and push it out to sea, which is an idea that came up in one of the final yelling matches, before the resignation set in. You’re serious, though.

She isn’t beautiful. Her face is the color of a walnut and her eyes were dark tribunals weighing the fact of me. Pinched. But there was something-she was the Sunday school teacher you loved as a boy because you had never seen someone beautiful. I remembered: it is Sunday.

[wpaudio url=”/audio/6_10/Fontaine.mp3″ text=”listen to this story” dl=”0″] And he has a pet rat, Ratty, who he holds up against the window so the front slant of his hairy face is pressed against the glass. See? he says to Ratty.

Front row. Terrence stands alone, his right hand reaching across and gripping his left wrist as if to keep it still. Back row. His father, always squinting, the one who still asks Terrence to “toss the pigskin” although in thirty-seven years Terrence has never said yes.

This old bridge can’t draw or won’t. Still I crawl below tying my things down in the dirt. You come by to tell me the dogs have run away or that a man’s voice should fit like a glove against your throat. Then you shake my shoulders so I’ll talk.

[wpaudio url=”/audio/6_10/Austin.mp3″ text=”listen to this story” dl=”0″] My stepbrother, Will, is sitting in the chair that used to be my dad’s favorite before he left, and he’s smoking a joint and using a can of Diet Coke as an ashtray.