I see the cat before the cat sees me.
White with black splotches, a longhair.
Leaving the law behind it,
stealing easily as light fails
essays | fiction | poetry | photography | art
I see the cat before the cat sees me.
White with black splotches, a longhair.
Leaving the law behind it,
stealing easily as light fails
Everybody called her ‘a character’,
a regular in the library
in her shabby Barbour jacket
and crumpled hat perched
on hair dishevelled as a bird’s nest.
When I bent down to give her a kiss,
she quacked
Then exploded with loud report
into hundreds of pieces.
There is an unspoken rule in a therapy group that you are not going to go out for a beer afterwards. It’s the same way that no-one actually tells you that you shouldn’t have sex with someone you just met on the third day of a meditation retreat, but you still know it isn’t a very good idea.
They do not know that the sun terrifies me.
Thinking about this, they grow wide-eyed and speak so fast that the windows become flecked with child spittle. How can they have made themselves so ridiculous by dreaming?
come inside! we’ve got so much to show you! over there you’ll find a mosaic-laden platter of figs, dates, & grapes, little green & purple appetizers like bougainvillea petals against a vine-entangled fence.
The horoscope said: You are a fish. You will come to understand this. She found this funny because it seemed like something more suitable for a fortune cookie, and because she had once had a boyfriend who, during arguments, told her that she kissed like a koi carp.
Hooves leave a hard imprint, a dark wet mark.
Hoof-clop like the noise your tongue makes
When it leaves the roof of your mouth.
we revered those rake-limbed lads
on the slot machines
as though they were gods,
not fishermen’s lads.
It will not miss
a trick—
or treat.
Its bulging eyeballs
on a roll,
it makes an advance
and then stops.
Underscoring the onset of nausea on the pier, feelings of self-loathing
also bubble up to the surface. “I get seasick in the bathtub, man,”
declares a ponytailed dude in Plymouth pink.