She’d always said, “monsters aren’t real”
to comfort me when I called in the night.
She’d say,

“Ghosts don’t exist” and she’d
tweak my nose and chuckle and
call me Casper. (more…)

We saw them walking
hand in hand- the one, slightly
in front of the other.

We watched them walking,
just outside our garden gate,
past the old Winthrop house,
where Pine and Filbert

intersect. We felt
the crimson tracer tag
our retina’s. Mark
us Barska red for –

Stop, Miss Alba …please… (more…)

Before you wanted to kill us all the time

things were better, back when we were like siblings,

you, the normal older brother, with a soft spot

for us, your retarded kin. Except even then

you couldn’t hide your distaste for us. (more…)

The snow glistened white, pure and sweet

the wind had blown, thawing the top layer

that it might freeze again, a thin crust

like sugar on creme brulee. (more…)

Hey there Mister, are you alright?

I heard you screamin’ in your sleep last night.

‘Round three past thirty after three.

What was it you said in last night’s keep?

“I’m going to the slaughter along with the sheep,

a wolf wrapped in wool has just as much meat.”

She rises early to scrub her flesh in brimstone

and ashes, waxes her board to surf the waves

of undead coming through the gate, their shoulders

bent at just the right angles. Her skin glows sulfur, (more…)

We move together in mass
Like preteen girls at a concert

held at the mall, the day before
the outbreak Now that music

with no elevator, is drowned out
by the masses, whose feet (more…)

Broken urban desert, stale, parched
Dusted and frosted with collapsing automobiles
Skeletal juices crunch and ooze underfoot
All is dead (more…)

calliope whine
the clown’s greasepaint
smeared with blood
(more…)

She knows the taste of nails,
a clutch of them in her mouth
like a dressmaker’s pins.
The flavor of iron is comforting,
something she can wield. (more…)

We first played this game as children
some three thousand miles south of here,
clattering out of screen porches
and down back steps onto cushioning grass.
Here my thick boots snap the snow like bone.
Freeze, somebody would yell, and we’d halt,
our traitorous hearts still pounding their drums.
There is no pulse on the tundra but mine.

(more…)