ALONE AGAIN, OR (Excerpt)
It was the usual thing, an estate sale, and the three of us, my mom and my step-father John and me were standing there, conspiring in the hallway of somebody else’s home about how best to rip them off. It wasn’t going so well. *********** Only this morning my mom had asked me “What do you want to do today?” I was on my bed, in my t-shirt and boxers, reading Spider-Man. “Let’s go to Santa Monica beach.” Lately I had been remembering all the good times when I was younger and it was just me an

His Cancer and Remission
His Cancer A dead apple drops, lodges itself inside the body. Next morning: grackle outside the window, dog asleep in the closet, dobsonfly rising from the bottom of the Susquehanna. Those contemporary love poems you were so fond of leave you in another place: mud banks, abandoned lots, airport restaurants with their cold coffee, whole bodies stashed in roll-away suitcases, what Mel taught you about birds, how when it rains they never leave the ground.

WHEN IT’S SUNNY THEY PUSH THE BUTTON
and the sky through the oval aperture above your head in the form of light that bounces a little then rests on the curved walls and also in the form of whatever colors you can see and maybe if you’re lucky clouds pours through maybe it’s obvious and peacefully alien like a young nun walking past the local establishments in a university town in summer where it’s always despite the superficial change

A Day at Work or How My Brain Slowly Decays
Dead Men Walking – 9am Lowered faces, hallowed eyes, and heavy sighs as people collapse into worn mustard yellow office chairs. Microsoft “Welcome” music sings in almost-unison as computers start. Some carry tall, grande and venti cups of coffee. Others, without the time and patience, make their way to the kitchen to fix bitter (free) coffee from Sumatra (labeled from same coffee shop). I add three hazelnut-flavored creamers to mine. Nick, one of our bosses, stands at the center of the rows, hands clasped. He’s a charming Italian guy who started working here after me and got promoted o

Early Years
Our bicycles on a dirt road weaving between trees trying to beat the sun home You laughing hard like the letter K pause to cross string fingers Pray your big brother doesn’t know his baseball cards are in our spokes Mosquito bit legs pump in unison My blue jacket flapping in the wind © 2009 Massiel Ladron De Guevara