March 2010
11 posts
The Whirlpool Woman
Note: Written for the KQ
On February 6, 2010, Petra Markham, 29, was arrested outside a laundromat while holding a laundry basket filled with shrunken heads. Reporters swarmed the parking lot as Markham, screaming and waving a fist in the air, was shoved into the back of a police car. One now-famous clip captured Markham, greasy-haired and sweaty, as she kicked a nearby police officer in the...
O Captain, My Captain →
My writing (and otherwise) buddy!
Cemetery Run
He puts on his shorts- the new ones that don’t fall down his thighs- and pushes a hand through his hair while he looks at himself. There’s too much acne. He’s lost so much weight that the skin underneath the pimples has started to disappear and now he’s always blushing with little red sores. It doesn’t bother him and he smiles before he runs out the front door.
A lap around the cemetery is a...
Carrying Three
Today I decided to give things back. There were only three of them, really: Laura’s shirt, Mark’s beer, and Rachel’s golf club. I had piled them up in the back of my room a few months ago, and I hadn’t taken them out because nothing had changed and I still didn’t know what I had done. I couldn’t look at that part of the room anymore—it reminded me that there were still pieces of what had happened...
Laundromat
Joey wants to go out for pizza,
so when practice is over
he drags me into town.
His skateboard and my clarinet
steal seats like they have names.
I take extra slices for mine while Joey
leans into his chair,
his jaw swaggering as he eats. He won’t stop talking
because if he’s quiet,
I might have a chance to see something.
-
It’s hot and we’re both sweating
as we leave, the restaurant...
Intervention
i.
There are no trees on this block,
the white sidewalk stretched out
like the palm of someone’s hand. I see her shadow first,
too long against the smooth cement
and I stand back, pouring myself into the second
when she doesn’t know I’m there.
-
ii.
Half an hour ago she brought me onto
our school’s lawn, stood close
and spat that I needed to stop
caring about someone.
Even his name...
Train Home
We’re taking the slower train
back out of the city. The trip’s over, but
I’m still not sure where we went.
I want to ask you
but part of me would rather wonder
what you’d say.
-
On the ride home, I press my shoulder
against the window, and
the map falls from my fingers
like it’s surprised that I found it.
Our sweaty legs are sucking the seats, the bags
from the comic store hug each...
Knitting Needles
Every night, she knits at the bedroom window and comes out the next morning with a different face. While she knits she watches movies, listens to old records, letting her fingers tangle with the yarn while she tries to find people she wants to understand.
On Mondays she works at the bakery, and you see her when you pick up strawberry tarts for your mother and sprinkled sugar cookies for your...
What She Looks LIke
I found her sitting by the stream near her house, playing with an old rope from the tire swing that used to hang there. Her sweatshirt was too big and it caught her yellow hair as it swung from her shoulders. When she heard me her hands stopped moving, but she made me come closer before she turned around.
“I told you. I don’t want to talk about him anymore, okay? I told you to just leave me...
Applause
I was late to the gig because I’d gotten the name of the restaurant wrong. The street was getting dark, headlights pushing shadows past my feet as I tried to make myself go fast enough. When I walked too quickly my shirt would brush the arm that was hanging off my body, motionless and freezing in its sling like whoever the arm belonged to was always upset.
When I rushed into the place, there was...
Top Floor
I. Me
My friends wanted to eat
outside because the afternoon
was scratching their ankles. I
fell behind them, playing
with a candy wrapper. They
leaned against a bench, arguing
as if they were trying to pour sound
over each other. -
I mumbled that there was something
that needed to be said, folding
the wrapper around the sides
of my fingers. They were silent while I tried
to remember...
