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The coyotes are making a kill. Their voices rise through the darkness.

I pass my hands over my eyes, mired by the miti-
gation of routine.

“Come here, my good child; sing me Pergolese’s Salve Regina.

Love I know is the husk caught and throbbing under your gums.

Do the work. Every day. Take a step back and see if you love it.

Hands brush the curtains, making them quiver like butterflies.

They lived on the street, their mom a prostitute and heroin addict.

She wondered if tomorrow would fill her with so strange a stirring.

I was tracing my finger along his hoodied back, to draw the route.

“If a man wanted, he could be anything and not come back.”

Soon I will walk up those same back steps the police took by force.

Our dog had held down what we had by pressing his belly to the floors.

Her father is important in his village and has three wives.

Diane Kirsten Martin

What was happening? All she wants is for Teddy to fuck her silly.

As Ilya sauntered back toward us, I saw a boy with nothing to lose.

“You are too young for politics, too beautiful for a jail cell.”

Mikey said the hole wouldn’t lead to China, but he was frequently wrong.

The cicada will crawl up a tree and leave the murmur of skin.

There were women everywhere, all naked or nearly naked.

We are nothing; less than nothing, we are only what might have been.

There are elephants in the hall looking for their mothers.

“That pool,” Kenny said, breathing harder. “I’m telling you, it’s magic.”

Lynette had stepped on something sharp. There was blood.

The surface of night is disrupted. Ripples cross the neighborhood.

She was laughing. Something animal in me was sparked, and I chased her.

I’m on the verge of a breakdown. So I might as well have another child.

He took off his clothes and left them on the living room floor.