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…)

Daylight was the first to flicker.
The air was subsequently thinned;
we gasped–each breath more
labored than the one before it. (more…)

Zombies
He paints them with his gun
colors of red and bone
like bursting balloons
the “Bang” is the same (more…)

No bites in the morningsave for bugs

drowning in ocular fluid

rubbing and rubbing

out plopped his eye (more…)