Paul Klee, "Alter Dampfer (Old Steamboat)," oil transfer drawing and watercolor on laid paper, on Klee's original mount, 1922, Rosenwald Collection, National Gallery of Art.
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Detroit Gold

First came the scrappers, Slicing the drywall muscle for Detroit gold. Dissection of the vein, red conductors. They gutted the city, Broke her teeth, Boarded up her eyes. Then came the scavengers, looking to make […]

Frederick H. Evans, "In the Attics," Kelmscott Manor Photographs, 1896, Purchase, David Hunter McAlpin Fund, 1968, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
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Broadway Avenue

East Canton, Ohio My grandmother’s house remains gray, remains past what might be recalled of it. A boy and a girl play Yahtzee! in the kitchen on a Sunday afternoon, and from the car I […]

South Netherlandish (?), "Glass Fragment," colorless glass, 16th century, Gift of George D. Pratt, 1930, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
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A Memoir

and we were dying a little every day fleshy leftovers on tilted sidewalks failing to leave an imprint even the sun seemed to weep and the shadows never quite faded even as day broke even […]

Egon Schiele, "Crouching Nude in Shoes and Black Stockings, Back View," watercolor, 1912, Bequest of Scofield Thayer, 1982, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
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After Party

Her Pomeranian shot back and forth like the white lines cut out on the coffee table as she tucked bleached hair behind her ear and snorted from the rolled-up bill. She stripped at Blush, the […]

William Leighton Leitch, "A Parkland View at Dusk," watercolor and graphite, ca. 1879, purchase, Didier Aaron Inc. Gift, 2003, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
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My Father in Wild Pants

Because the ’70s sang. Because of becauses he couldn’t explain from the sand trap at the 17th hole at Brookside, the doctors drinking bourbon and soda in the clubhouse. I know the photographs, only, what […]

Henri-Edmond Cross, "Landscape with Stars," watercolor on white wove paper, ca. 1905-1908, Robert Lehman Collection, 1975, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
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Sights

  With flint and tinder to kindle, we spark a blaze red-yellow-blue as night bedims and outlays the starry convoy of the skies, urging a census of the countless; hours vanish posthaste till sun gilds the […]