Shrimp Crystal Flavor Packets
a conceptual shrimp uses its limbs to reshape the reader’s mind, mounding and clefting your mental world until it is the mental world of some other creature: shark, scallop, arthropod boiled down to pure flavor crunch.
Talking Birds
It was my mother who taught me that hummingbirds don’t sleep: they fall into a state called torpor, which is deeper than sleep, more akin to hibernation.
“First Funeral in Four Months” and “On Visiting Aunt Rosa & Car Racing”
I’m a little out of the loop.
Before the service, I buy breath mints
instead of flowers.
I wear the wrong shoes.
I leave my facial tissue in the car.
Artificial Intelligence
“We can break the fourth wall. We’re writers—we do that.”
“I’m not that kind of writer,” I said.
“Smart Poem” and “Good Person”
I keep meaning to write a poem about something really smart.