Explore

A heart takes precautions, withholds warmth, but it’s mistaken.

You sounded so confident about the Old Masters and I loved you for that.

Here I am, king of the gods, making a fool of myself just to get under your gown.

James Salter

James Salter

I was once a rider of mastodons, a waitress showing skin.

She does not know within a decade she will unload a slug into her mouth.

The men here don’t know where to place me, call me exotic grail.

When I’m reading him I feel myself come closer to you than usual.

All day we lay on the bed, my hand stroking the deep gold of your thighs.

Her sly smile was a vicious remnant of her life before Real Life began.

Because grass sprouts from the stump’s rings like tiny soldiers.

Pale dust clung to their skin like the lime he had thrown on the dead.

“Refuge,” Nina said, tilting her head back; it was a word she learned.

my baba sits in a midwest garage with the hood propped open.

The legendary author Robert Stone, in the words of his friends.

I wear a gray sweater not unlike the one my father used to wear.

Someone’s walk is pretty much who they are, from the beginning.

Walking through the snow with her was enough, quiet enough.

Her previous existence seemed unreal, now, a faint rumor.

I was bold, even reckless, in what I wrote, and in how I wrote it.

She looks in the mirror above the sink, and her image makes eye contact.

The rings of Saturn flash their nothing yellows, nothing blues beautiful.

I am left with little Rome for error. I choose wrong, then I revise.

When one of the Baxters yelled, “Hey, Turd,” we all turned our heads.

Let’s span a time with each other. The mutual will give us pleasure.

Brassy bullets fell against the floral comforter like little candies.

Maybe older Natives have more trauma than younger ones.

“Look in my eyes. Do I look like someone who has heard this story?”