Strange. Surreal. Shocking. Beautiful.
Strange. Surreal. Shocking. Beautiful.
The noise wakes the trees outside the hospital window. They stretch and shake out their leaves. A dislodged sparrow turns toward me and gapes open its beak. It squawks “beep beep beep” and I realize it’s been doing that the whole time. There are other noises, too—a distant, distorted voice like a conductor shouting into a bad mic—are we near a train station?
Listen to our audio presentation of “If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love” by Rachel Swirsky. Narrated by Lynne M. Thomas.
I was supposed to go to the ball, but I spent the night licking out my stepsister instead.
My wife lolls in front of the TV, spread out on the sofa, eyes glazed and mouth open, illuminated by flickering light. Her empty–eyed stare is so vacuous that it looks like she could have died there, stuffing her brain with the shopping channel.
If you were a dinosaur, my love, then you would be a T-Rex. You’d be a small one, only five feet, ten inches, the same height as human-you. You’d be fragile-boned and you’d walk with as delicate and polite a gait as you could manage on massive talons. Your eyes would gaze gently from beneath your bony brow-ridge.
Jacob’s wife is always screaming: Cheat! Scoundrel! Layabout! Scrooge!
Jacob takes solace in the mausoleum. Girls there are quiet.
New Year’s celebrations crashed through the streets of Whitcry in a din of masks and swirling petticoats. Pottery smashed against cobbles, women’s shouts echoed from garrets, men groaned and fought and pissed.
On her wedding day
she is red and black and white:
cheeks flushed with desire,
dark hair spilling over bridal gown.
