“You’re Rebecca’s sister, right? Are you Rebecca’s sister? REBECCA! Your sister! Your sister is here! REBECCA!” Ann smiled at Gary. He was always the first to greet her at the door with a firm handshake and a serious mouth. He continued shouting while the House nurse walked through the door and waved hello. Rebecca was draped across an armchair; feet dangling over one arm, her head resting on the other. She lifted one eyelid at a time and...

Building composure makes my eyes twitch and strain against your old words. Hammer-fisting carpets made in China, I am a wake of reds and golds. You fell from high speeds and were mangled. I imagine gravel and leaves folded into you, cake batter. Rows of thick shelled heads glint along side of you, told-you-so's miss-you's one-last's.    

Under her jeans, her skin is salty. It isn’t her salt. In the throng of body heat and whiskey-laden breath she can feel herself targeted. Later, she knows, she’ll lick her fingers clean. The smell of saliva overpowers everything. Her breath smells like children. She feasts on pickled ginger and scalding coffee, cigarettes and mineral water. It’s never dark here. Thick halos of light smear across damp air, fall onto her hair. It frizzes. She looks wild, in the night; brittle-...

In the darkest part of night I can feel you bumping the perimeter of the bed in an effort to undress quietly and slip tight into my curls. Time has no direction in my room, in the late. Guttered and lessoned, Mouth unclosed against anything you ever asked of me. I am only too happy to be told what to do. The television is on in the other room. My eyes are sealed to windows, the flapping of trench coats painfully stylish against the hems of skirts, hats pressed firmly down-- but this is...

If the sum of our parts is this quiet, eye-averting, hesitant kissing, I want to multiply it. Negative integers across fields of skin white as onion paper. My imperfections are greater than yours, quiet as settling chalk dust. I could try to show you proof, but I was never any good at math

I hope I can break this spell: the long line of daughters bearing changelings who will grow into women, tormented by men without fear. When I was young enough not to fear the sun, you gathered my brown skin to your chest and read fairy-stories of brave women. You were the stone-eyed queen with a cement tongue; you abandoned entire countries at whim, you birthed me, trickster child, as duty. I still see you mouthing incantations. I didn’t know the words as a child, just the execution, bowed he...

It’s four pm and the fan is clicking. I should be throwing up or running or studying the internal lay of crayfish and mollusca. I pick at dry skin around my toenails and wait for some invasion. He invited me over on a Sunday for throwback movies and casual sex, I faked an ear infection. 7 more cigarettes and I quit. I’ll smoke them all today. Instead of enjoying each one slowly, memorizing the pull in and head-tilt out, I will gobble them like tiny men, missions and things to prove. I think I...