Shedding Heat It’s good to ruffle our feathers now and again. Bury ourselves with our own deep and dirty down. Festered feathers the a fraction of the kind outwardly shown, the hottest pins which have kept us warm, pillow around us like a show of shed dominance…. “See, I can make a bigger mess than you can!”

Something Stinks Reeking dirty yellow, a power pole sweats creosote in a sidewalk pit, staples stubbling a third the way. Atomic Acid bleeds their Mr. Yuck logo on a sun blistered flyer two weeks after their gig. Callouts curl all over each other for the ripest spot boasting 'THIRTY POUNDS LOST IN THIRTY DAYS' from dialing 1-800, while a self-professed Best Roommate flags his number for you to rip-off and ring.

A Pacific Motion Picture Entering Semi-Ah-Moo spit trailing a Straits Salish, she previewed a speckled heron egg projected over the sky-dome. Clutched within seagrass, bunches of petal Dots tempted her, melting from a popped sun. Ushering the aisle, pygmy bunnies chair hopped from stump to stone while her feet ground a maraca pebble-and-shell track. The sea shushed, chomping at its seaweed cud. Jutted elders, frozen in salute, were patrolled by Haliaeetus who halted her pass. Petrified oak bo...

Petrified by the Poet I was a second or third grade Whitman Elementary student when, through some scholastic memo, my mother was notified that a children's author was coming to my school for a reading. Being more wound up by the news than me at the time, she rummaged for my only copy of one of his books. Book-cover missing and pages stained by dirty Kool-Aid smudged fingers; she packed it into my back-pack, giving me strict instructions to get an autograph. Even though I was unfamiliar with t...

Their pudgy heads smoosh against the window of the world in awe of radio flying air waves wisped around finger painted farms and block built buildings. The cheeky brood squish tighter for a clearer view. Condensed in croons and whimpers, they salivate for a taste of tornado eye candy. While pooling there exasperations, thing turn dark. They start counting their heaven pennies and hawk their silver linings for lightning bolts to shatter the barometric separation. Unfortunately, what is clear i...

Audubon marsh boys on spring break twig fished without flies for bubbling creek turtles, but none would snap at hope alone. The pair darted a zigzag boardwalk until their ears blushed more rusty than the moss spores bumpering the deck corners. Slowed down to dribble and plunk every flat stone and watch the water spiders surf the ripples, the finches called them ‘cheaters’ so, they filched a scrap with them tossing crisps and chatter back into the bushes. The duo snatched up cattails and raced...

Flora went in for a drink, planted there by a dare made to herself. Her cast clutched the skim-coat amidst stiletto roses that cocktailed water at pedestals for two. She was parched and couldn’t speak. Her dusk was licked up the wall by wick sipping flames. Exhalations disturbed the candles, shimmied a shady silhouette of her climbing ankles and arms in double vision against the wall. She gripped it closer to still her shadow but it would not stop quivering a dance out of her. She grew in anx...

After summer’s water-gun recons, brother and I were anxious for weather we could trigger all our fingers into. Winter gales came, crystaled trickles spearmint, mounded and trenched our Dakota plain into a war reel. Having rubbed our hands with frozen grenade schemes since spring we dug-in, camouflaged in daddy’s flannels, demolishing our frosty sentinels with ice shrapnel. Shaking on a hand-spat peace treaty, we allied our artillery onto icicles carnival-dangled off the shed eaves. On the win...