Stories

I looked into their eyes and loved them, and wished to God I was dead.

When I was lonely and drinking, I would end up in bed with him.

The notes must be crying inside me falling from their proper octaves.

I promised to return, but secretly I dreamed of staying in America.

My mother was dead. Almost a month she was dead, killed by me.

She knew Jim would be a terrible husband. They’d murder each other.

A grin of bitterness swept thereby like an ominous bird a-wing.

I am desperate to love myself, to tolerate myself, vanity is fine.

If he was going to pick me up, the least he could do was look at me.

Some days are stretched so taut it feels like changing might break us. We feed the baby bitter melon, flower pepper, bloodroot beet. The first snow comes in January, fresh gauze over an old wound.

He betook himself to the metropolis to become a literary man, of course.

The grass is defiant, wild, and reluctant to take any shape.

I walk across the fields with only a few young cows for company.

Some goals: stop buying jeans. Stop being angry at mom/dad/sister.

Ten years ago, when I was in college, my father divorced my mother and said he wanted me to become responsible for her. That is why I fled to Italy.

Her nostrils flare with the intensity of effort; she’s like a little horse.

Firing stopped, and Bedouins herded camels across the artillery range.

Gresham’s law. Stupid talk chases smart talk out of circulation.

The graffiti suggests the most essential story of New Haven.

A finger on the bell, a quick sprint on light feet, and then stifled laughter.

I hang there, upside down, watching Bronwyn, her face beatific.

Anchored off Biscayne Bay my father’s wooden skiff swings easy.

I want these things to have another life, like the old garden behind our house.

Dad was blind until six months ago, when he bumped his head in the fire.

We spit out the black seeds, bits of night glistening on the grass.

Even then (Colin remembers now), it felt like the end of something.

i stored away in my mama’s empty perfume bottles smells and stories