Naomi Mandel
I’m lying on my back at the bottom of this hole in the ground and I’m getting all freaked out and nervous because I can tell that the sun’s going to pass in the sky above my face and hit me right smack in the eye. I hate that. I have to squint for what seems like forever before the sun moves out of the way and the rim of the hole casts a shadow over my face, and I have a headache for hours after. Red spots in my eyes. Sure, I could turn my face away, shift in the dirt, lie on my side and face the wall for as long as it takes. But I haven’t moved in days and my bones and muscles have stiffened, and I don’t feel like peeling myself off the bottom of this hole even if I could. Besides, the ache of the cold and damp has settled inside me like a friend I don’t want to disturb.
Jonis Agee
Around me the house, the people, the animals make decisions. The toaster produces the amount of browness it considers right; I can’t get it browner, burned almost as I like it, no matter how many times I punch it back it returns just as quickly. It makes these decisions, I am not certain that they are made in my interest, I suspect I have little to do with it, no reason to think so, I don’t want to anthropomorphize or anything, that could be foolish, assuming that the toaster oven in the corner under the cabinet to the right of the sink cared about me.
Maggie Smith
Beautiful things fill every vacancy.
—C.D. Wright
I am a buzzard sky, late
fall, the smell of kerosene.
Mike Ingram
Keep the radio on. At night, the television. Old sitcom reruns are best, the comfort food of late-night entertainment. All the sets are familiar, the laugh track a thick blanket of companionship, the characters the best sorts of friends: they dole out their love in easy one-liners; they ask for nothing in return.
