Tag Archives: Kyle Hemmings

The quiet girl next door is found dead from too little air. I loved her from a distance, from an upstairs window.*** “All god-fearing men sing like gorillas in the rain,” says Sister Maureen, who is slowly going senile.*** Mother brings home a pig and decides she can neither kill nor stuff it.*** “Is there […]

It’s summer, a season of forgotten berries and a neighbor’s neglected hyacinths. Today, the sky is the color of peeled potatoes but the sun manages to make eyes at Alice, here and there. Mitch, a half-blind boy with down-turned eyes and a forearm of beetle-shaped scars, is teaching Alice to do “The Doolittle Drop,” a […]

They always did things together. Like fly fishing and trying to conceive. When that failed, they bought a pet. In late middle age, they even stroked out at the same time. Their precocious monkey, Mr. Hobbs, dialed 911. Out of rehab, Alice walked with a tilt, became obsessed with Ralph’s old fish hooks, a tinderbox […]

I didn’t get a good look at the cab driver’s face at first. I gave him the address where my ex-girlfriend lives, the one I’ve been stalking for weeks after she dumped me like a bag of stale potato chips. I was planning for another confrontation and this time I wouldn’t be at a loss […]

The enemy has devised a new way to rout us: They’re setting our clocks back by means of invisible hands and remote frequencies. This means we can never be 100% sure who we were before or then. Like the enemy we try committing inflicting domestic atrocities—hacking each other’s sex lives but only coming away dry […]

A war of stray bullets is raging. Toxic rats sneak into our homes, draw blood from the deepest well of our sleep. Avenue D is being overtaken by radioactive clowns. Avenue C can go either way. Ghosts are driven under the streets. In dumpsters, weeds grow out of crumpled Starbucks cups. In a loft, in […]

We Can’t Swim in the Dark You can’t love me. When you press your ear next to my heart, you’ll hear the swoosh of back history, dumpster mermaids and open hands. I recall the teeth of the night. No hot line for those marked with erroneous incisions. You still recite Marx from last semester and […]

Remission You’ll recover from her pomegranate lies. You still unpeel at the touch. Tossing in her bed like another stray dog, sweet canine shelter for animals shedding skin. Gluten will not unravel the night. So you stay hungry & speechless. Her meager hand-outs, her breasts that taste slightly vanilla and not-forgetful. She says she heard […]