Pecanland Mall: Monroe, Louisiana
God’s Infidels we drive to Pecanland on Sunday morning everyone else is in church it’s the new blockbuster Star Trek into Darkness purchase tickets wait inside a 450-seat food court eerie as a Klingon vessel. Only one other group they sit in plastic chairs a couple and their two sons crew-cuts anointed with turquoise and […]
The Half & Half
Earl’s Half & Half was located at the border between Louisiana and Arkansas. The liquor half was in the state of Louisiana, and the grocery half, in Arkansas. Customers joked that you could go from one state to another in less time than it took to sign your name. The store had started out as […]
Creation of the Golem
He floats in my dreams like debris from a Shreveport wreck, and in a last ditch effort to ban his jetsam from washing up on my shore and decomposing on freshly clean sheets, I create a profile, list six things I could never do without, six things I don’t know what to do with, tap […]
A Congress of Poets
Walk down the hill from the Historic Mayfair Hotel, the room is clean and the water hot, costs less than other places, forget about getting breakfast at the Convention Center, at least I can buy enough coffee to open up both eyes, but everything is closed on a Saturday morning. And this is LA. Descend […]
Wandering in the Desert
I want to wake up each morning without remembering your voice, how we used to wrap around together in one invisible seam, a velcro from head to toe. I want to wake up each morning knowing I’ll be okay get everything I need to get done without convincing myself for the hundredth time it’s over. […]
Mortal
The way forward is with a broken heart. –Alice Walker (With thanks to Elizabeth Bishop, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Frank Sinatra and W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan) I was the myth you stole from the twenty-second floor of my apartment building overlooking Long Island Sound and the Orchard Beach of my childhood growing umbrellas and empty beer […]
Shoot Me, I’m Online Dating (10)
I’m not proud about online dating. Why would I want to brag about trying to find loving companionship after searching through profiles and photographs and exchanging emails for much too long? The truth is that eight years ago I thought the kiss of joy had grazed my cheek. On that particular evening, I had sworn off renewing […]
Darkness Simmers Beneath My Surface
I scrubbed each kitchen tile with vinegar, doused stainless steel appliances with cleaner to remove all streaks, lemon-oiled the two halves of the dining room table and pushed them back together, dusted shelves until the micro-fiber cloth changed colors, gathered up garbage from all four corners and placed them at the door to take downstairs. Later, I remembered how I needed […]
From Pulp Into Paper
This is from my novel-in-progress, Pulp Into Paper. Brenda Shawn trained her flashlight on the ground and landed in the water on something soft and squishy. She shook her boot loose from gunk. Moving along like a small tractor, she checked the view between trees that led to the road. No one there. She put […]
Bayouish
Louisiana bayou, you are a collection basket for Mother Nature’s hand-me-downs.