The maiden and the dragon met on the night of the new moon, when the darkness would be deepest and the virtuous would be inside and afraid. They met on a high moor, lonely enough to be suitable for the conference, and the wind howled and cried and pulled at the maiden’s long cornsilk hair as if it were the soul of a badly neglected child.
Read MoreTo Increase His Wondrous Greatnesse MoreThey have done everything they can to hide the arm. One of the finest needlewomen in the court created an elaborate sling, decorated with jewels and feathers, with the pattern of a swan fleeing a rainbow to chase a radiant moon.
Read MoreUndone
The Museum of Angelic Artefacts was a road–side attraction; a blip on the map where families stopped to stretch their legs and maybe take in an old film of the visitations. They would round out their break with a trip to the shops to buy coffee and ice cream, a postcard to put in a drawer and forget.
Read MoreWakingThe small girl looks at me with the innocent insolence of children who say out loud what adults are thinking to themselves. A skinny, pale, fair–haired child of five or six, she already looks so like her mother that I feel sorry for her.
Read MoreHome by the Sea
Word webbed over the altiplano, carried one village to the next by the wandering gene merchants: a pilgrim was coming.
Read MoreMaria and the PilgrimI woke in the afternoon gloom to the sound of my 20–year–old stepsister Lily dragging something heavy and wet up the back patio steps through the kitchen door. The smell of blood and brine smothered me the moment I sat up.
Read MoreAntumbraThe summer air, already electric with the violence of the war, the assassination attempts successful and unsuccessful, the anti–war riots, became super–charged with the rumor.
Read MoreDispatches from the Revolution
The moon came up and the sun went down. The moonbeams went shattering down to the ground and the jackalope wives took off their skins and danced.
They danced like young deer pawing the ground, they danced like devils let out of hell for the evening. They swung their hips and pranced and drank their fill of cactus–fruit wine.
Read MoreJackalope WivesI was supposed to go to the ball, but I spent the night licking out my stepsister instead.
Read MoreAll That Fairy Tale Crap