Hineni

The night of my parents’ funeral, she told me that the most important thing you can tell people, dead or alive, is that you are here. On this earth.

Herpetology

Stevie and I fed the alligator in the lake behind the bowling alley on our lunch break. Not directly. We weren’t idiots. We left expired hamburger and piles of fat scrapped off the Snack Shop grill on a special rock at the edge of the water, farthest from the dock.

Through the Veil of Her Hair

You marry the dead girl. She is a scarecrow in a white dress, only the smallest bone of her pinky finger woven into the straw and wood holding her together in effigy. The rest of her has gone into the air as smoke and ashes.

Raptor Ready

Red-tails are not rare—they nest in the trash trees on the limestone cliffs of Interstate 440. But wherever or whenever I see one, normal life stops.

Twenty Hard Things About Being Married to a White Man

If he spent years studying some aspect of what you think of as “your” culture, he won’t waste time arguing with you about whether it’s really your culture, or whether you know enough about it. Instead he’ll make clothing suggestions––sarongs, saris, dashikis, dreads, natural hair instead of extensions––and he’ll study you.

FLYOVERLAND

It’s for your own good, she says. Otherwise you’ll bake like a pork tenderloin. Or does she call me a pork tenderloin? Or maybe what she says is, Are you hungry yet? Dinner’s getting cold. If you don’t eat your pork tenderloin, he will.