Out of the Margins

they used to recount stories but
just when i became old enough
they stopped i don’t know why
and now i ask i ask i

When I was eleven years old I had a dream that my house was burning down. And I wouldn’t call it a dream, really—it was more like a fantasy. When I woke up the blanket was pulled over my eyes. No, this is no joke.

I will take you home, bug. I will put a pot of water on the stove. I think you will feel fear and suffering, but your body will not be broken until after you die. According to our people, that makes you special.

When I met Cara, I was at the bar and lounge on Thursday night, choking on a chunk of grilled cheese sandwich. Cara ran up behind me and performed the Heimlich maneuver, as I vomited on her purse, cheese staining the stitching on the red leather. “You saved me,” I said, catching my breath.

December dragged its slow funeral into the father’s
blue-blur hands. Car swerved past wind-torn highways,
through the family’s tunnels of hearts. The grandfather
pressed his head against car’s window. Anesthesia, early doses.

as my fever rides on
to a brighter & snowier peak
the tyrant of my heart texts me a HuffPo
article about the novel coronavirus