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Friendship
Kenny
after my mother’s funeral standing in the receiving line just / below the altar rail shaking hands with people I hardly knew / when Kenny a face I hadn’t seen in twenty years appeared and / grabbed me and hugged me so damn hard the wind went out / of me
November 2019Now And Then I Look For You
Two alleys down from the bodega, where I found you that time. Under the defunct, overturned hot tub that once or twice served as your roof.
September 2019
A Tribute To Tony Hoagland
By turns funny and sad, caustic and poignant, Tony’s poetry first appeared in The Sun in May of 2000, and he was a regular contributor for the past ten years. Though he frequently used humor to make his writing more accessible, he could still catch the reader off guard with a sudden shift in tone, ending a poem in a very different mood than where it began.
March 2019
The Only One She Told
You had the face of a man who couldn’t help understanding everything — all of it, the whole pathetic, tragic human thing — and that draws people in. To me you were a magnet of kindness.
January 2019
Leaving Austin
It seems she was surprised to hear from me. “Marion,” she wrote back a week later, “I kinda liked you when I met you, and then I learned to love you, but now you’re just the skank that fucked my man when I was struggling to make a family.”
January 2019
That Summer Abroad
Joanne, have we ever been so free as then? / We’d change destinations / on a whim, Rome one day, / hitchhiking to Brindisi the next.
September 2018Nice Girls
I used to feel like an imposter because of my breasts, because even before I got pregnant they were pretty spectacular, and it’s made me wonder if I’ve ever actually earned anything, or if all the jobs and awards and opportunities I’ve gotten, really, have just been handed to me because of fat deposits that would be disgusting if they were placed a few inches lower, on my belly.
September 2018
Maintenance Boy
I worked weekend nights and a couple of afternoon shifts during the week. Sometimes I requested more hours just to get away from home. Being away meant I didn’t have to deal with the sadness that lingered in our house.
September 2018
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