My neurologist asks me many questions
To make sense of my brain: What day of the week is it?
Where are you now?
What is your home address?
(What if I am homeless?) What state are you in?
Where were you born?
What did you eat this morning?
How many fingers am I holding up?
Maybe this month, the good tomorrow, perhaps this day,
or even at the last minute, a simple joy will come. Already
I’ve made it through the night. At this stage of my life,
I’ll reserve judgment as to whether it is fate or a predestined
purpose for my suffering. Yet there are many others who suffer
more. Who am I to complain or doubt the value of my existence?
A painted eagle soars across the commissioned mural
of our mountain town, as if highlighting hidden gems
of heritage and scenery not found on digital maps
or surveilled by a Chinese balloon trekking southeast
from Montana to the Carolinas hunting who-knows-what
and prompting Statue-of-Liberty-sized rumors. I capture Continue reading Birds to Prey by Laura G. Miller→
With only the press of a button
the pillows rise on a gentle slope, his eyes on mine.
The window is open a crack, the way he likes,
light and breeze dimple the gauzy curtains.
His lips move on the moistened cloth,
but he does not speak.
A star sticks to the nape of his neck
like an interplanetary kiss. His first
day in Farmersville, suspicion rises
like hair on a cat’s back. Folks do not
notice transparent, green eyes or
the odor of outer space he emits, but
talk of the star spreads fast as a missile.
Drunks at the Mahogany Bar want
to aim guns at the stranger who entered
town as if on a wisp of cosmic magic. Continue reading Asset from Another World by R. Nikolas Macioci→
You always made two cups of steaming tea, one for him
and one for you. Your tea was calming; you did not say
what his was intended to do. Even so, your muzzle
would sometimes wrinkle and twitch, your eyes glow
red. He could not tell when you were looking at him.
When he began discreetly pouring out his smoky tea into
the houseplants, they flourished as if you had spoken
to them every day for a year, given them pet names.
The second time I saw you,
I looked on your crown from the porthole
of a plane, but I saw you first in a picture book
from the American Library that rolled
into our Black Forest town once a month.
This time I was on top of the world,
a bride with a new name, a new country,
a town in Tennessee.