Ghost Parachute

I want you like the sudden silence of the chute opening, the twin engine fire now a childhood memory, the earth so far below it makes no sense, panic a clay you can mash into fist shapes like a heart dead cold. This she writes into a notebook, smoking a Pall Mall under a maple. […]

The afternoon hours in the Polio ward wear on in dull sameness. White walls and white sheets blend together; minutes melt to hours melt to days. The tremendous swishing of two iron lung tanks can be heard through the wall. I know my husband Frank will come to the window soon because we have all […]

The night of our date, we agree that you’ll drive your pickup truck into an embankment while I stand on the side of the road filming it, making sure no animals are harmed in the making of this video about abstaining from sex with the guy you like. This is Sex Ed now. The earlier […]

You’ll have to wait to be called. Does he have his insurance card? What is his date of birth? Who is his secondary? There are many sick people here.  Flu season. Please take a seat in the waiting lounge.  Yes, he’s been checked in. We’re moving him to the Vertical Patient area. No one has […]

They say in Eastern Europe that the red trees first appeared at dead midnight on the Winter Solstice. They say Sergei Navs woke to a noise and looked out his window. They say the first thing he saw was his prize cow dead in the snow. Followed by his horse. Followed by his mule. Followed […]

It’s such a fine feeling — to find the first saffron milk cap. You pass a little glade between the firs and then, down the slope overgrown with ferns you descend to a small opening under large old pines. A spot of orange attracts your attention shining against the mesh of emerald grass. It is […]