Darth Vader answered the com in his best falsetto, practically singing, “This is Teletech. My name is Darth Vader. How may I help you?” The Emperor hovered, always shaking his head disapprovingly. Vader pretended his breathing wasn’t ragged, that his fists weren’t clenched and sweaty. “Yes, well, there are two community centers on Dantooine, do you know which one I should connect you with?” The com call ended with a […]
Vader looks at his reflection in the door and polishes his helmet. He thinks the mask makes him look old and tired. He palms the door control, and steps into the Emperor’s Throne Room. All of his dark and evil friends are there. Black and silver balloons line the room, cosmic glitz is being served; all of this to celebrate him. As if it mattered to the galaxy, as if […]
“There’s no law says we can’t start real and end fake. What are they going to do, put me in movie jail?” –Albert Brooks, Real Life The jailer, played by Anthony Quinn, is a mean son-of-a-bitch, but dumb. In a fit of rage at your failure to respond to his tentative conversation, he tosses the keys at your feet and dares you to come out and take him on. […]
Her hands, ink fast fingers, sweep-curl of words are graceful beats and flow and thumping glide, a slide guitar wrapped around syllables wood-block foot tapping lips wrapping a breathless harp, notes leaping out a five story window and catching on a blues woman’s voice, heartbeat of Chicago, of the Delta, places I will never know, skin I have never been in but for moments with her words– Bessie, Aretha, Etta, […]
I tried to imagine dancing – how yesterday my muscles understood sunshine. I tried to hear the music, the grace in your voice, the sex and the uncertainty. I laid in blue sheets, waiting for the elevator. Waiting to shake the dust from my hair. Trying to remember how those notes on that guitar made me shiver. I turned up the AC. Wiggled my toes. Killed […]
Gentle Matthew sits silent, a stable home next to my unfurling dress, skirts blowing a loose prayer into the cold sand. I talk too much, Daddy. He does not move at my confession, but winter light shifts slightly against his old shell-back, and then I know he loves me, no-words-deeply. The slippery wake laps at our toad-mouths, pulls stories of wave and family to the […]
After trading in our awkward for the agility of the feline, we set out to investigate the delicate machinery of Night. It turns out Night has been singing all along & we just couldn’t hear it. It turns out Night is a bloody good singer & should go on X Factor performing Back to Black by Amy Winehouse, which the audience will dig, not just for the humour but because […]
Slipping out and under Osawatomie, Kansas Eighth Street Bridge in my rust-bound pirogue and transistor radio While my shitty fish stink pickup and my truck sinks in aluminum can and plastic bag silt Onto the Marais Des Cygnes on the river to snag muscular, bottom-sucking pinks and whites To bring prehistoric swimmers to McClatchy the fish restaurant guy in Louisburg for customers To spend fish-money on daughter’s return sweet Delia […]
Michelle, did you know that you, singing in your trim-fitting black jeans, made me first question pronouns? I wondered how much of a hard bargain “he” was, in your mind. I wondered: if I showed up the epitome of your desires with one less body part and a softer smile, skin, voice, would you have jumped on the back of my bike? I yearned to be that […]
I cried so hard I threw up; kept hearing his snarling and snapping, then the blast of Travis’ rifle. I was nine. Not even Momma’s embrace muffled that sound. Yesterday I searched Netflix for “dog,” and there sat Old Yeller. I watched it with Momma in mind. How she loved dogs—even when her right arm and whole tongue had been stolen by stroke, she’d still reach out with her […]
Melancholy Hyperbole 