Jul 06
The Dogs Were Good (Again) As if they had a choice, chained to the backyard fence, whimpering in the freeze like the weaklings you said they’d be. I threw some dry ham bones and snouted one, remembering to laugh as you’d said to. None of them ever barked, which made me wonder what good they …
Jul 05
Lemon Tree Sweat of the beach on your neck, the sea perfumes the rain plants, the sky clears, the sky bruises purple with lightning. The fruit of a lemon tree moon shades towering over the dune sand, and then descent, a rush of wind down the branches, down the sand on wooden planks, we run …
Jul 04
DEATH BY DISTRACTION People fly out of car windshields in collisions because they can’t pull their eyes away from their phones— they forgot how dangerous it was to pursue dopamine boosts, cheap thrills that can kill them like their votes killed this country, people dragged from their homes, people and their rights erased by self-serving …
Jul 03
Westley Heine’s Cloud Watching in the Inferno A review by Ryan Mathews I’ve long held that age is what happens to the rest of us since the best of us don’t make it this far. That’s not to say that the rest of us don’t have a lot to say. It’s just that time compromises …
Jul 02
An Abundance of Riches “Iran Launches Retaliatory Strikes on U.S. Sites” 6/23/2025 They are droppings bombs again because pre-school and patriarchy never ends, though the world just might this time. I used to worry about that, about so much that it made me anxious or depressed to the point I’d only talk to my desktop …
Jul 01
She Has Steve Buscemi Hair (And Eyes) I end the week with a little extra money in my pocket. Perhaps my son’s bills were not quite as harrowing as they had been in past months. I don’t know. It’s likely I forgot to pay something. Anyway, since I don’t believe in saving toward retirement and …
Jun 30
Bloody From three o’clock in the predawn haze I stay awake thinking about how not to make my colonoscopy a Tarantino movie. These days it is never too early or too late for the news to break. I kill a mosquito only after it has a bellyful. Is that twice the sin? My blood and …
Jun 29
The Proud Father His bottom lip quivers as he rises before the judge, the jury, and the television cameras. He is your son, your only child, and he recently turned eighteen. In his new navy-blue suit and tie—the navy-blue suit and tie you bought him with the money you and your wife had saved for …
Jun 28
ORLANDO June 5, 1990 Her nipples are aspirin Which I take with water. The moon melts like butter in the fog of five a.m. Morning turns to glasses of red wine And moans of neighbors fucking. She holds me and I call her River, call her Night, kiss her voice: the sound of rain upon …
Jun 27
20% I only went once to my rapist’s grave don’t know how he died or how to find out his obit informed me five years late faded mausoleum flowers grant lifelong peace took an hour to find him city cemetery, by the zoo Some days I stay alive because I have more graves to visit …
