When my father measured women in percentages, I learned to chart myself like livestock—head, pelvis, torso. Yet the red horse leaned his warmth into me, the chickadees sang, and the body refused to stay math. Years later, back home, I discover what love weighs when you stop counting.
(fiction)
The latest in our FORTHCOMING series of excerpts from new and recent books:
He had written DECEASED next to my mother’s name on his return. That threw the whole system off, sending his return into the void for further review. Since the entire IRS was working from home due to Covid-19, which arrived approximately two weeks after my mother’s death, apparently every day was now Leap Day, and perhaps in another four years my father might get his refund.
Even a Banyan tree lives longer than an emperor.
I’d assumed I’d share my story with him over a beer when he was in his late twenties. A fun anecdote not a cautionary tale.
(nonfiction)
The latest in our FORTHCOMING series of excerpts from new books
“For once, I don’t want to call love a feral cat; / I want to forgive myself the way water / forgives everything.”
He’s standing around and a girl in a red coat makes him think of me. Or a French bulldog, that I would run to pat. Or a scent makes him turn back.
(fiction)
“Looking up / the wave of your gaze arrived / upon my shore.”
“In this story, day zero is when I live, and you die.”
(fiction)
You tell me to keep my ass out of the road, and to stay the hell away / from the poison ivy and Virginia creeper because my skin reacts to / everything.
Often, South Flight will offer a line or an entire poem all but exploding with agony and suffering.
(reviews)
How I loved sitting on a barstool listening to James choose his words to perfection and pronounce them in a way that was subtle and glowing, as if they were wrapped in beautiful paper.
(nonfiction)
Another Chicago Magazine 