My grandfather has fallen asleep with a paperback in his lap, hands braided, glasses on — and I watch his reflection from the bathroom mirror where someone has left a stick of deodorant by the sink that says Sure, and I am… Read More ›
poem
The frail edge of belief
They look back at themselves thinking they will see something more but never do, they are still the same. We are the modern harvesters picking turds out of the grass, bits of glass that could be made into something, some day. Who… Read More ›
Zen fortune cookie prize
The man hatched out of nothing and spent his whole life trying to lose it so he could return to a place he didn’t remember but thought might still be there if he believed it was.
Shy bear lookout
The forest has grown in now, this time in spring the green darkens and I am inside a giant’s beard hacking my way through fronds and fallen limbs, unsure where I’m going or why, just that I need to be… Read More ›
Good Friday, 1981
On Good Friday my parents wake me to say Michael has passed away, we’re both around 11 — something I can’t pronounce or spell that came from a mosquito bite with blood taken from a sick horse that made his… Read More ›
Chance meeting, Mr. Zhang
Today I met Mr. Zhang at the park. He passed us once then returned a second time and pulled up a seat. He was a non-person to me before he stopped, we got to know each other through words. I… Read More ›
The spirit begat you
The old fishermen who gather on the docks in the early morning bundled, bent over, drawing out line and outfitted with plastic bags and baseball caps The sky clouds trees, The water reminds us there is more than ourselves and that’s why… Read More ›
Put away for safe-keeping
That first night you turned your back and my arm fell off in bed, we were made statues then like brittle, precious things put away for safe-keeping, hard to move.
Implied rooms
There is no part of me I can leave without seeing myself still, as I get smaller on the shore. I move about my space wondering at the edges as a toddler fans the border, at what keeps us inside. And… Read More ›
Then I was the remnant of a tale (for Carver)
It is a nothing day, a gray day, a throwaway day and I have disappeared into a crack in the sofa with all those forgotten things, a no-man. I have dream-drafts to send me off, sounds of the dryer and… Read More ›
Bill Pearse 