A little girl was sitting backwards in a wingbacked chair. Her head was rested in her hands. She had large, green eyes and curly bangs. She was peering through her bangs through the blinds at the rain. It had been raining for an hour. “Five-eleventy, six-eleventy, eight-eleventy,” the little girl counted loudly. The little girl’s mother walked into the living room. She carried a basket of laundry towards the sofa. “Honey, don’t sit in the chair that way. You’ll ruin the cushioning.” “Twelve b...

there are many things in the world that have branches: trees have branches and the government has branches branches make me smile because they’re funny I like to stretch my arms out like branches maybe I’ll be the first tree superhero and fly off buildings but my momma says it’s too dangerous for little girls to pretend to fly “they let you run around like this at school?” she says I like to stretch my arms out like branches maybe I’ll be the next president and then I can be a real branch and...

Mat pulled his pick-up truck onto the shoulder of the road, the rhythmic sound of the windshield wipers more like pounding inside of his head. He cursed, slapping the steering wheel with his fist. The pine tree air freshener swung from the rearview mirror, disturbed. Thoughts flew through his head. "Mat, the officer stopped me again at the grocery store," Lynn had nagged that morning, not bothering to look up from the dishes. "If only you would fix the headlights, I could get through the day....

My papa was born black a darkie, a nigger, a coon but if he is lucky he will die a Man tiredyes but Lord, O Lord a Man

Two, rapt in a kiss, lie palm to palm under dark skies. A jolt, lightning. Swelling from mists to floods, god’s tears feed Earth; They humor in a puddle. Thunder and lightning waltz to the beat, as blithe as They: pure fleeting youth.

A little girl was sitting backwards in a wingbacked chair. Her head was rested in her hands. She had large, green eyes and curly bangs. She was peering through the her bangs through the blinds at the rain. It had been raining for an hour. "Five-eleventy, six-eleventy, eight-eleventy," the little girl counted loudly. The little girl's mother walked into the living room. She carried a basket of laundry towards the sofa. "Honey, don't sit in the chair that way. You'll ruin the cushioning." "Twel...

Carl doesn't like many poems actually. And even if you could manage to write one about him, he wouldn't like it very much at all. In fact, he would say that it wasn't a poem just like the Hundred Years' War wasn't a Hundred Years. "Oh," he starts which reminds me..." and then, at that, he'd be off, mumbling about futile military decisions or better defense tactics, like the ones he often uses when you ask him "How's your day?" and he blinds you with his shield, maybe says to take an object an...

There are some nights when I wake up in a cold sweat from dreaming: "You must be God" curled up naked on a conveyor belt in shock, it's all i can manage the scientists are probing, making notes some button noises and shifts the belt lurches me into a dark tunnel the air tastes like seafoam And there's paint at the end where I die myself blue and leap into the ocean shaped like His eye hoping I can't be found for the blue for the blue right before the air leaves my lungs I remember metal hands...