My patients were always strangely delighted when the pills matched their handbags or polo shirts. I took my belongings out of a time-battered suitcase that belonged to my father, and laid my shirts out on the single bed to decide which was most suitable. There was a cocktail bar nearby, but in a place like Sherman I didn’t expect much of it. At home, I’d grown tired of the prescription drug addicts and débutantes with anxiety disorders, so I’d flown east to find someplace without the designer label boredom, intending to stay a month or two. I was unaccustomed to the high salary I’d been receiving then, leaving much of it unspent, and was pleased to finally have anything to do with it.

All I wanted was to get a clean towel out of the dryer so I could take a shower. I hoped to slip by her, unnoticed, as she hovered in the kitchen while I was rinsing dishes. I could feel her looking over my shoulder and pretended not to know she was lurking. And when I finally turned to take the kitchen trash out, she said, “Have you heard of this book Billions?” I said no, and that I would be right back.

In Darkness:

Chakula hichi ime toka kwa mkono wango
Naomba ita kaa kwa mdomo wa Mzee
Mzee mwenyewe atai pendaaaa
Yake nii kuu sema ni yeye
Sio yanguuuuu
Ni yake
Yake
Mzee

Mwena mweni
Not mine, his
Mwena mweni
Not mine, his
Mwena mweni
Not mine, his
Mwena mweni mwena mweni

It was obvious to all the moment he entered the room. The scoundrel was dressed in a red velvet cape, a galaxied tiara of crystal about his brow. Ganymede! Apollo! Oh, slick-tongued Dion, dreaming in the long grasses! He leaned his long frame over the bar and asked for milk from the nipples of Aphrodite.

Two Channel by Tom Offland

Sometimes Joan sits and watches television. Its sound turned off, its glass screen blinking like a broken lamp. Who could say what she's thinking?

I could reach out my hand, ask her, say, Joan what are you thinking, but it would be like reaching my hand into the sunlight. It would be like talking at the television.

...READ MORE

172     for the server at the Blue Danube
Dim warmth, it takes
comfort food thrown
at your table

burning each other up as we ram into those orbits,
thankful that inertia lets us pretend
we’re such a “big deal,” speaking in metaphors
because euphemism is too direct, direct because
we’re making a show of hiding something
and
saying what it is that we’re hiding by way of negation.

And WHOOSH! Every time one goes by
I say this, and trace its afterimage
with my finger. I want the world to know
the universe is burning up
around us.

Trust fund, trust fund! What egg
un-nested, what fun, rusted plaque
and all. A stolen glance at legs
or cheat of a creamy back -
a short dress with hope at hem, delirious.

PART ONE
Sometimes Joan sits and watches television. Its sound turned off, its glass screen blinking like a broken lamp. Who could say what she's thinking? I could reach out my hand, ask her, say, Joan what are you thinking, but it would be like reaching my hand into the sunlight. It would be like talking at the television.

The Devil’s Mask by Khanh Ha

THE stable boy peered up from the saddle when the little master made a grunt in his throat. Something was coming. Out in the sun, a white-furred monkey stood looking in. After a while it waddled in like an out-of-shape old man and, once past the sun glare, and inside the cool dark, its fur looked as white as the rice flour. It usually came when the little master was in the barn.
...READ MORE

In the process of clawing my way to fame I commingled with a lot of foul characters. Shanghaied by their sordid ambitions, I was dragged into a moral black hole. I had to brown nose these scrubs, hate it as I did. And once I got famous the media hounded me, many of them claiming I was trash. The truth is I’ve battled these naysayers my whole life, finding that none of them has the DNA to be a rock star. So they can cram their crappy reviews; I say they’re the ugly ones. My art transcends them.

While walking home,          this man's
hat was blown off in dense wind.
When he got home,          there it was,
waiting for him on the front porch
in sure direction     like a hole-in-one.

Inside, the wife said, "thinking always
about history, some day you shall fall
into it          like a kind of time-warped
tunnel,          no return."     He has supper,
reviews the indigenous newspaper

as if written          like letters from Plato,
watches old Western episodes on TV,
drinks a highball with two cherries
reminding him of          sunrise-sunset,
goes to bed and dreams only in black

Amy:                   I spat on you by mistake then,
                            I’m sorry.

Anthony:            That’s alright, sweetheart.
                            If anyone was to spit on uz, I’d want it to be you!

Amy:                   Aw, you smoothie!

Anthony:            I know.
                           These wedding vows just write themselves, don’t they?

The stable boy peered up from the saddle when the little master made a grunt in his throat. Something was coming. Out in the sun, a white-furred monkey stood looking in. After a while it waddled in like an out-of-shape old man and, once past the sun glare, and inside the cool dark, its fur looked as white as the rice flour. It usually came when the little master was in the barn.