I think there’s something about a funeral at midday, in the dead heat of summer. Something cruel and primal about the way the big glass windows of the chapel look out onto the grass lawn, where children at day camp are playing stickball and laughing and calling each other names.
His Scaly Self
Gradually, he grew accustomed to his alternate form, to the point that he could forget about it for hours at a time.
Fitting Rooms
I heard the sliding door of the bathroom creak before she opened the shower curtain a crack and looked inside. We made eye contact, and I didn’t say anything.
Shirt
I am 100% silk. Please be careful with me! I catch easily on sharp things like hangnails or jewelry or a leaf blowing in the wind. Even a very harsh word or a mildly harsh word or a word like sure. There is no sure in shirt—it just sounds like it.
How to Ask Your White Teacher for a Letter of Recommendation
Compliment her, ah, unfettered teaching style. Don’t mention the bewildering feeling you had in her class, one of being erased and reconstituted.
Spent
It’s the witching hour, and I am the whittled witch: from lack of sleep, from a long, notched day spent with nothing to show for it save skin that’s been touched raw.
Abandoned Things
I’ve been here for as long as I can remember, but I never thought it was lonely. The shadows of Tall buildings follow me around all day and give me little reminders.
Please, Be Sensitive
I finish telling my therapist about the assault. She takes the time to write the last part. The silence is oddly comforting.
The Glue
I stood up and scanned all the items in the house. Everything looked like she had been living there until just a moment ago. I had to sit down on the chair for a few minutes.
Drought
He told Jay, “Hold still,” digging his fingernails in the raw, yanking out triangularout bits triangular bits of asphalt. The bleeding got worse. But he ran water over the wound, and with his pinky thumb, he spread the antibiotic cream, before bandaging him tight, with a bit of room to breathe.
