As a member of the St. Olaf Choir, I spent a lot of time on concert stages in a purple velvet robe, nude hose, and a pair of black, smelly flats—smelly because all the women’s shoes traveled in the same trunk from tour venue to tour venue, to limit the risk of someone violating the strict dress code during performance.

The municipal fire alarm sounded, and the town of Lodi stirred.

I don’t know how would you even describe this take?

From the roof of the Cotton County Courthouse, looking out past the flagpole toward the west, you can see the lots on which my grandparents’ houses stood; the bare patch where Tracy’s dog, Blackie, lies buried; the filling station, still operating just across the highway from Deenie’s old yard; the Hart-Wyatt Funeral Home; the rodeo arena; the unused railroad depot; Sultan Park; the Electric Co-op’s grain elevators.

You purchased a / Spider.

A plant nobody planted grows in the window across from mine on the fourth floor.

The Icelandic word for lamb is “lamb,” but the village where I climb down from a tall, hot bus is called “Hvammstangi” and I’ll never learn to pronounce it quite right.

Oh my god, they say.

a skull tattooed on my neck