1. Preliminary Report, with notes and “eyes-only” material, including recovered communications, from the days prior to the incident which has come to the attention of so many, submitted by Sr. Volunteer Patrol Officer Childe Gordon, BS Criminal Justice Theory, BA English Lit, Bonito Beach PD.

Pearson stretched out at the hospital picnic table. His eyes forward. His hair slicked back. His new heart pumping, pumping, pumping.

What kind of world was it, Dave wondered, where a woman could put herself above a man?

Tony didn’t seem like the other white guys at the El Dorado. I mean, not just the obvious thing of being younger than his dad and uncles.

“How like a winter hath my absence been / From thee…”
~William Shakespeare, Sonnet 97

My father calls to tell me that he has to give up swimming. His shoulders started aching awhile back, but he went on swimming until the pain buried itself so deep in his joints, especially at night, that he went to the orthopedist.

A playground. Recess. FOUGLAS (pronounced like “Douglas”) kicking wood chips around. CLEMENTINE under a slide pretending to be a cat.

A ten-minute sci-fi comedy about serious stuff.

A man stands among several playsets. A play kitchen. A play school. A play veterinarian. A play pizzeria and food delivery stand. None of them come above his waist. 

Last night in my dream you smiled in a way that meant more than friendship, so I am checking if that’s what you mean.

“I used to hang out just outside           the fence of Pearson International,
on weekends with friends,         and bring binoculars. It became         a bad hobby
immediately after 9–11.”         Sujoy summed up, “You know how I look,”

Juarez tethers me like a balero
with a bridge instead of string. I tread

The year I spent a month in Denver visiting my daughter in the eating disorder hospital

the closest companions were the geese who flocked the concrete islands between the too-wide roads.

Temptation: I find sandals for me
when looking for gifts.

Confusion: I buy two dresses for me
when shopping for canning jars.

A woman could forget herself,
staring at pomegranate in the produce section.
Juicy red arils, peddled in see-through cups.
It’s involuntary. The mouth makes room

The rattler your husband impaled by bringing
down his shovel, the body split in two,
those twitching parts. Frost killed the butterfly

If anything
must fall
on us, let it

Late sun longing through the knuckles of the blackthorns

by the pond; a languorous spark. The copper heads of ferns

some animal concatenations were more probable than others      as intelligent as any echo
mechanism my accelerometer at odds with my thought processes the problem of hard

For Matthew

Wearing-in mourning’s lackluster suit, I took
a walk: heather, like toffee-brittle Christmas

trees, the copper edge of curling gorse
illuminating the way. You should’ve been here