June Fever Burning

June fever burning
Can’t tell
the difference, under the skin, under the sun.
Stand there all day, skin red to white
like bird shit smeared down a metal screen.

June fever burning
Cook the meanness out
Peel skin, boil cells, kill germs.
Turn up the heat,
Run to my lungs, to the shale rock, to the ground.

First day of June
Ugly bird babies
A mother’s nest of sticks and worry,
Fox snake lawnmower
Everything out to get what’s hers.

First day of June
Everyone’s having babies
Faces like dough, hard gristle eyes.
A mother’s nest of sticks and worry,
Inside not a one of them can smile.

First day of June
Take the tools from the shed.
The father and his boy plant flowers in the crack
Up in the shale rock where it makes no sense
They’ll catch water but not much else.

June fever burning
Heads of broccoli on the floor,
Dinner party skeletons.
Twenty-two legs, not enough chairs,
Uncle folds himself on a pillow like a girl.

June fever burning
We tell mean stories,
Balancing lukewarm plates on our knees.
We laugh when we hurt each other
We laugh til we’re sick.

June fever in my lungs.
Keep going til it makes sense, til I run myself
in the ground.
The father and his boy will come plant flowers
In the crack where the water lives, in the shale rock
Where I used to burn.

Try a Little Selfishness on Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day, everyone!

Thanks to a wonderful partnership between Red Room and AOL, Red Room authors are often invited to submit something for one of AOL's various outlets, with $100 donated to a charity of the author's choice.

It's such an honor to have my article, Try a Little Selfishness, up today at AOL's Parentdish, with a donation to a cause (and a place) close to my heart - the Yaak Valley Forest Council. Please read about the Yaak Valley (and donate, if you can!) and in the meantime, hope you enjoy my piece in honor of Mother's Day.

I Heart Malaprops

If you're ever in Asheville, North Carolina, get thee to Malaprops and buy yourself an armful of books. Great store and incredibly kind staff. It was certainly one of my favorite stops on the tour!

Alsace Walentine, the events coordinator at Malaprops, posted this great Twitter picture of herself reading Bone Worship:

A Red Room Original

I'm honored that my essay "The Longest Day of Her Life" -- about a young woman leaving her home country in the Middle East -- has been published as a Red Room Original. You can read it here.

Montana Days and Ways

My essay, Four Years in Montana, has found a new home in this month's Connotation Press! Have a look here.

On Writing, from Beth Hoffman's Brava!

A great perk of having a book out in the world is that it acts as a kind of calling card, bringing people into your world, and you into theirs. Beth Hoffman, author of the New York Times bestselling novel Saving CeeCee Honeycutt, is one of the most generous people I've ever met, in addition to being a splendid novelist. It's an enormous privilege to know her and to read her work.

Beth was kind enough to ask me to contribute an essay on writing for her site Brava, which introduces authors and readers. Here's my own version of advice for beginning writers: Head Above Water.

New at TNB, None of the Above

"A man and a woman went for a walk near the road named for luck...and found the skull of a boy."

I have a new essay about a missing boy, grief, and how well we really know each other at The Nervous Breakdown here.