Remember that I am your creature… —Mary Shelley, Frankenstein Scarlet-lipped, magnetic, full blown and unmothered,I am the blank page my maker writes on. I was a beautiful unblemished creature. Clean as a crow-picked bone,pure as virgin milk and batter before eggs are added, bright as an albino fawn, an ivory tusk before it’s hacked,a lampshade, Elmer’s glue … Continue reading Morality by Dale Champlin
We played a game—the floor was lava—we hopped from couch to chair,crab walked across the window seat,then swung from the chandelieronto the library table. If you knockedanything over—a book, a goblet,a bowl of flowers—you would burstinto flame. When that happened the little hairs of me shot straight up.I squealed. “Pop Goes the Weasel” tinkledin my ears. Outside small wrenspeeped in the bushes. Mouthwateringsmells drifted from the … Continue reading Positively Volcanic by Dale Champlin
Isadora is a narcissist.“Me, me, me, me, me, me,”she bubbles. She’s pretendingto practice her scales.I tell her “your only scales are on the outside of your body.”After that she stops singing. Continue reading Narcissism by Dale Champlin
You’d be surprised how many people talk to goldfish. He looked like a young David Bowie,her kid Jimmy, when he came and sat beside my bowl. “You know I’m an addict,”he told me. He talked to me the whole time he spread out his paraphernalia—needle, cotton balls,one of the Old Shoe’s bestsilver-plate spoons. He tied off his arm and flicked a vein to pop it to the surface, addeda few … Continue reading Free of Pretense by Dale Champlin
O Mother I love you despite everything. —Erica Jong To be deprived of sight and sound—exhausted as a lobster in a trap—unblinking—plunged to a depthwhere everything goes black. Here my desires seem flimsy—even water has lost its transparency. Threads of bubbles syphon up from my bed of leaf mold. Dear Mother, are you on your third Manhattan of the evening? Is my little girl lost in fitful sleep?Is your son under arrest … Continue reading Barbie Suffers from Insomnia by Dale Champlin
