GASTROPODA

I rock away my loneliness in a hammock behind our new rental, with its unpacked boxes, its knotty pine cabinets, its old trees in the...

Hope is hard. We imagine it must be planted in the rich, wet earth, sheltered from frost and hail and the scorching heat of middle-day....

I’m walking in the rain when I start humming that song from Mama’s car all those years ago. We had only listened to cassette tapes then,...

I meet a man obsessed with bones. He runs impatient fingertips over my ribcage & grabs my hip bones & kisses my teeth instead of my lips,...

I remember how much I loved to read as a kid. Books took me from my solitary life as an only child and transported me to Dickens’ London,...

An indefinite number of rats populate the world. All estimates fall in the billions, but this does not include the number of mice,...

Lock your bicycle in the alleyway where the restaurants empty their trash. Food truck exhaust mixed with garbage smell and the pavement...

I have a friend who never uses the word “creatures.” I’m not sure I’ve heard him say “living things.” If he is speaking of humans,...

Oops! usually followed by a wink. A few times a month. How do you keep them all straight? Weekly, probably. Have you ever heard of...

Now all we eat is words. We used to eat sorrel and pawpaw and hen of the woods. We used to grow our own galangal and hot peppers and...

In my childhood, snow was magic. As the days grew shorter and the temperatures dropped, I became dizzy with the prospect of bright eyes,...

My newborn is blue, not breathing, her umbilical cord wrapped three times around her neck. “Is she okay? Is she okay?” My voice catches...

I used to bake quite often. So often that whenever we go to the grocery store, I make it a habit to add a bag of flour into the shopping...

It’s what new parents call the witching hour, what people without kids call happy hour. I am standing under nearly scalding water,...

As a child, I loved the Gem and Mineral Society. They have a building at Balboa Park in San Diego. It’s got the same adobe design as the...

I kick my legs in the shopping cart until Mom hands me a warm cookie from the bakery. The weekly trip to the grocery store means crinkly...

The open road starts with a gifted car, decorative flowers spray-painted in a fluorescent-bright parking lot. A girl laughs as drips run...

I love the bench’s broken legs, the white bone of metal underneath the red paint. Here is an elegant decline into new spring weeds, into...

October Ocean I don’t get out of bed until I become so sick of researching jellyfish stings that the navy comforter starts to feel like a...

The summer air is hot and damp as the sun disappears behind the faded fence posts in the shadows of the backyard. I revel in the sounds:...