Previews

Have You

“Have: to hold or maintain as a possession, privilege, or entitlement—I have a car; I have a choice; I have a story to tell.

Or: to feel obligation—have to have.

And another: to experience especially by submitting to, undergoing, or suffering—I have a cold.

Now, thirty-one and newly sober, you don’t feel like you possess what happened with Dane: neither the agency nor the complete memory. Definitely not pleasure. Did you, then, experience it? Have it? Perhaps only in the sense of obligation, and in service of your wish to be desired. Did you, as in another definition, partake?"

Through the Threads

“I dreamed a stranger stole my coat. Pea coat, without buttons. A soft belt through two loops to keep it closed. A hood.”

Not a Dream

“When I see him, I’m standing outside my open garage door, watching the black olive tree tremble. Green worms hanging from its leaves. How much wind can their silk strands withstand?”

For the Voter Stuck in Silence

“I am a product of politeness.

Which is to say, I am a product of silence. Silence meant, in some ways, to protect.”

Items to Survive

“On the corner of 1st Avenue and 30th Street, behind a spiked, wrought-iron fence, the old Bellevue Psychiatric Hospital looms.”

Silent Interrogations

“My mother: nine years old, standing on the shore of a New York beach.”