On Francisco Goya’s painting of the same name. Can you propose a more appropriateResponse for Ops when she illuminatesHer husband, elbow-deep, in between chews? The muted slurping your abuse made beforeWas punishment enough, she snarled. When goreRemains unknown, blackness paints barbaryMore wretched than reality. I thoughtTo see your sin could not be worse than whatMy…

Perfection placed in broken arms that dayYou came out screaming, wrinkled, pink, and breathedRelief, for you, miraculous new babeWere proof God watched, still cared something for me. Your garden chime echoed beyond the door,A Christening gift. “Watch over her heart,”It whispered. “She’s your little girl but more,She’s ours always, on loan, heaven’s fine art.” Today…

When green fields grow barren And life grows all too much I sit fixated on the sound Of the steel birds That grace the sky above. When flowers bloom And then grow dry Under the fiery sun That makes water run dry And lands grow barren  Do I see the happiness I had once in the pastSo long ago And now escapes my reachLike salt…

This morning I murdered a book, as I laid in bed with my dozing pitbull,watching her breath move the blanket,her paw twitching against the mattress and my legwhile sunlight submersed the room into existence. The plot had some sort of twist that I hadnot recently seen in film or book;or, at least,I don’t think so,for…

Yellow popcorn curls and June bugs, girls named June and May and April too. Southern summers smell of 1950’s funnel cakes and fast boys, faster cars and jars of strawberry jam. Brown skin kissed by boat dock bruises and cool evenings on porches older than plantations — haunted like them too. Drive-ins with Bobby and…

There seems to be more every daycoming and going through the old grey double doorsMob of Mason Bees buzzing without terminustwo to a room, fifty in total and they’re all flying solo Three bees, five nightcrawlers and two flat-nosed bats sleeping the wrong way upSingle misplaced souls in a realm owned by seven billion The…

The TV set centered in the airy living room,breakfast flowing out of the kitchen, a fruit salad, garishly and gorgeously colorful,flavors waiting to be accepted into our plates.The screen door lets sunlight casually stream in,providing a view of rows of unextraordinarily neat suburban houses withthe greenest grass you ever did see.Next to the door, the…

It’s all of us and the small towns that hurt us. Leaving you was like prison escape and I knew it. It was simple hard, I didn’t know how much poison there was in the water fountain water and school lunch until I left, coughing up blood every once and a while for years. “oh…

It’s just the way things are, they never change,told you I’ll tell you more later. The world spins with or without us,but know I wanted you here. Speeches only work in the presentand old words can’t save you later. And I can’t always be there. I was looking for the secret of the universe but…