Publications
Threshold
Guernica | 11 December 2023
The bathhouse was a straight shot north of Michael’s home, tucked into the northeastern corner of Volunteer Park. Peddling into the parking lot, Michael felt serene, the cool night air cleansing him of the anxiety that had ribbed him all day.
Destroyer
Fence | 22 March 2023
It is no use telling how Kimberly and I configured our system for passing sound on the breeze—you wouldn't believe it. Cockatiel. That was the message she sent, the one I unwrapped from dusk. Meaning, There's a new hunk in town, and shouldn't we be out finding him?
Creation Myth
Triangle House | 17 August 2022
Though she had spent a week in that tropical place, partaking in many of the excursions the resort advertised to families like hers, the girl would not remember the snorkeling or the lagoon tour, the zipline through the jungle or the dolphins she had ridden.
Kingdom
New England Review | 16 December 2021
On their drive to dinner, Gwen was trying to tell Jimmy about the wolf, which had come again to their backdoor. "Last night—"
"I know all about last night," he said, veering the Mustang through a roundabout. “We fought big, loved bigger, and missed the second half of the game.”
The Begetter of Life Is Dark
Ecotone | 12 November 2021
A schematic of passion reveals nothing / clearly. My mothers, sisters, and in-laws / are drop-jawed for the natural world, unfurling / atlases and mapping possible solutions / to their ongoing state of gridlocked wanderlust.
Marco Polo
The Idaho Review | 19 July 2021
The word had barely left Thom's mouth when Adrien leaned forward to correct it. "The pronunciation is lángos," he said. "You don't hiss the ending. You hush it."
The Gator Years
Foglifter | 8 May 2021
I lived next door to Rick for four years without longing for him even once. Then it was summer, and I was newly retired from teaching, and there he was, waving from the far end of the grocery store's produce section, and there I was, feeling hot in the throat.
The Father Scale
Joyland | 9 December 2020
Three years after our son Mack disappeared, I found him on the back deck, sitting in the dark as if it belonged to him. During his absence, someone had taken the curl from his hair and the child from his face, but it was this other change that first caught my breath. Before he vanished, Mack had been terribly afraid of the night.
The Many Brothers and Me
The Adroit Journal | 21 May 2020
He had over one hundred brothers, he told me. It was spring, the sky damp and valley soft. The brothers had scattered themselves nationwide for reasons both personal and political. There were two per state, approximately.
Cruising
The Cincinnati Review | 19 February 2020
The moon hits the black
pebble beach. The moon makes
the black beach blue.
Quotations in Exile
Passages North | 18 February 2020
I read 125 books in 2017 and only wrote down quotes from 10 of them.
The distance between what I read and what I recorded surprised me—less
gulf than valley, this was a span stretched far enough to forget that the
material of one end could be found in the other.
Etymologies
American Literary Review | 22 October 2019
Did you know that “gossip” comes from the Old English “godsibb?”
My brother, Alan, once became obsessed with gossip, pushing his name around the school hallways until others began carrying it, too.
Harmless Are the Harvestmen We Don't Let In
Catapult | 31 May 2019
The harvestmen arrived during the dark weather season, just days after a series of soot storms blackened our yards and windows.
"Harmless Are the Harvestmen We Don't Let In" is available to read here.
Bounty
Hobart | 30 January 2019
In August, I stood in the doorway, watching as a bounty hunter pressed her fingers deep into my flowerpot and told me about the vexing but ultimately successful capture of my husband.
The Fire Is the Art: An Interview with Garth Greenwell
The Journal | 14 February 2018
This interview, conducted in November of 2017, is available to read here.
The Divorce Myth
DIAGRAM | 31 October 2017
Before spring, there is nothing.
Call it white space.
Call it an empty preface.
Longshore Drift
The Masters Review | 16 June 2017
On the way to visit our grandfather, my older sister Jackie predicted my death.
“The cards don’t lie, boo,” she said, sliding the horseback skeleton across the tray table. “Do you want me to tell you how it’s going to happen?”
Summer of Families
The Rumpus | 8 March 2017
The summer after my mother left, my father began selling our household on evenings and weekends. We were still on Lincoln Avenue at the time—a single-story adobe just south of Los Angeles—and when he directed clients, he liked to say that it was the place losing to the grapefruit tree.
A Confession: An Essay
Essay Daily | 17 October 2016
A confession: this essay will be more about me than the Hungarian man I meet or the essayist I read. This is not to say that they are without import: the former is a quinti-lingual tour guide and couch-surfing host who serves the eastern side of Budapest; the latter is Leslie Jamison.
On Caracas, and Driving Through There One Last Time
CutBank: All Accounts and Mixture | 21 July 2016
My mother first tells me to play dead on a beach near Caracas. I am crying, or have worried her by crawling off toward the surf while she napped, and she is leaning close so the words make an impression.
"On Caracas, and Driving Through There One Last Time" was published in CutBank's All Accounts and Mixture series showcasing queer writers. It is available to read here.
Life Trauma, Inc.
American Chordata | 15 July 2016
It has just pushed past four in the morning and I am wondering if real people are really awake right now—be it on this street or in this city—or if it is just me and Tim, holding eye contact and breathing late-night breaths and waiting for something important or moving or enlightening to happen here between us.
The Year of Newfangled Lonely
Barrelhouse Blog | 20 February 2016
In 2015, we wake up lonelier than we've ever been. I can't stand, we say, as though our muscles have been scraped away, misplaced somewhere else.
Published in the February series, Weird Love. Read "The Year of Newfangled Lonely" here.