My neighborhood was an urban menagerie. Snakes and snapping turtles mingled with fast–food wrappers in the creek. Tadpoles swam in street puddles after spring storms. Months later, cars left frog skins baking into the asphalt. The green anole lizard was my favorite. Something about their beady eyes and the way they fought their reflection in […]
A sound like water, beading up and falling, tap-tap-tapping fast enough that the noise becomes steady, gentle. That’s nice. It must be raining. You hope you remembered to put the bike under the porch. It continues, and the static of noise seems to disappear under this attention. Hm, did it stop? Focus roams, searching for […]
The girl is seven. The boys are older, maybe nine. From the kitchen window, she watches them try to blow the lid off a garbage can with firecrackers. They hoot and holler. Then they see a cat, and one of the boys grabs the cat and tells the others to run into the garage and […]
The man’s nails dig into my skin, leaving angry red crescents alongside the needle marks in my arms. My feet are folded under me, scraping against the floor as he drags me forward. The man is over six feet tall with a shaved head and stubble on his face, and he reeks of cigarettes. He […]