gbaurbis's profile

Kelly stared at the planks, the honey wasps, wood ants, and the wolf spiders crawling between the cracks. The lifeguard, a big bronzed arm college freshman, waved Kelly down. The guard asked him his name and if he wanted to swim. Kelly said he did not know how. From the edge of the deep end a kid, yelled repeatedly,  what Kelly thought of himself, "He's a wimp. He'll drown." Standing alone, he thought of his cat and fish, his two sisters, his mother drinking coffee, ...

My children dove quick as plastic white lids blown off bait containers, swift as bluegills that nipped their legs, hairless chests soft as suckers bellies. I preferred swimming pools, clear water, sloped bottoms, feet and depth marked. The boys swam, stood still and peed, gave each other pinches, tugged at each others’ shorts. Tiptoed up to their noses and floated effortlessly. I stood still in a cloud of minnows that spat sand. Crayfish bit my toes. The boys waved hystericall...

Green mustard dill weed Pumping royal red black wings Wisconsin south bound  

Fingers trace letters and dates, big as thumbnails and carp scales, curved like fins and innards. Brown rivers flow north and crows darker than shadows roost in gray muscled oaks above a finger length of snow covering grass wounds healing. Be quiet fathers. Sons’ foreheads press letters and dates, deep as worms and sown seeds, rows like victory gardens. Starlings and cornstalks, full of fear chase of dead grackles’ chicks and cracked eggs along smocked soil and sky above a finger ...

Shots of schnapps, short taps of Miller High Life. My mother's girlfriend shows up in leather, nails polished ebony, limbs like oak racks, a happy helical birthday whip hung on the waistline of her inner thigh, wax teased. Mother's enduring menopause drank industrial strength vodka, trauma traced translucent arms and thighs. My father was stuck back in my mind nakec off the highway rest stops, with stinging nettles up his ass Teaching himself not to cry.