An Abbreviated Family Dictionary

Setting

Thu, 24 Nov 2011 17:52:24 GMT

You can sit in dignity at the family table, holiday over your head, turkey carcass demanding respect. But you're still an inveterate smart-ass.

Backyard

Mon, 14 Nov 2011 13:02:58 GMT

A pile of shit embedded with a crayon. A crunched and vomited frog. Heck, even a mosquito bite on the tip of the glans. No, really. It was always full of horrid potential.

Toothpaste

Tue, 08 Nov 2011 14:21:30 GMT

What it teaches about ambition. The old-fashioned kind, not modern contraptions to ensure you get every drop of so much less.

Fall

Sun, 06 Nov 2011 01:06:44 GMT

Composed of past and present mice—the house's ribs, the house's fluff.

Ticks

Sun, 06 Feb 2011 03:48:05 GMT

Not the dankest citizens of your best friend's crawl space. Still, there can be worse repercussions than a lifelong obsession with the greased-up lady in the fireman's hat.

Syrup

Thu, 30 Dec 2010 15:24:48 GMT

A soup you can make yourself. A pocket soup.

Uncles

Sun, 14 Nov 2010 12:55:46 GMT

Endless clown parties.

Bedroom

Wed, 27 Oct 2010 01:09:49 GMT

Uphill from the rose garden, further from root vegetables, a house is a house is a house. And carrots are thorns that stick where they're put. Other things are less obviously pinnately compound.

Always

Tue, 26 Oct 2010 11:52:35 GMT

It is impossible to pass a monogrammed bowling ball through your wood-paneled esophagus. In either direction. That's why you feel this way.

Constellation

Wed, 29 Sep 2010 13:55:15 GMT

Throwing up strawberries. Don't distract from the beauty by saying "vomit". Sandy and covered in needles, intact in our original syrup, by your side on the side of the road, we beg of you.

Supposedly

Sun, 26 Sep 2010 12:41:20 GMT

One minute you're addressing the foundation. The next, you've embarrassed your folks at the rally with an inappropriate reference to your foe's balls. In your shiny jacket you peel away like a slug awash in beer. It's always like this. This is how you will always go.

Encyclopedia

Mon, 13 Sep 2010 17:47:41 GMT

The payoff for the stair-top shimmy. But nobody can teach you a damn thing. Nobody can prove you're not Spider-Man.

Texture

Fri, 10 Sep 2010 16:07:27 GMT

The brakes catch your continuing fall.

Issue

Thu, 09 Sep 2010 12:38:35 GMT

It was not our hearts’

Forswear

Wed, 08 Sep 2010 21:54:04 GMT

I am not familiar with your name. Your wallet. Your passage to another country.

Passage

Tue, 07 Sep 2010 19:02:36 GMT

In temper, she kicks a hole in the wall. Not supposedly, but with some strength.

Stuff

Sat, 21 Aug 2010 05:51:50 GMT

Roman decadence in the form of home-canned tomato juice. It's like a mason jar would melt before we'd prove our cut crystal, Lit a Turque, tiki bar, telephone table, sheepskin rugs and chifforobes are all in good taste.

Custody

Tue, 17 Aug 2010 13:05:58 GMT

The baseball fan who shaves a razor ragged. He is subject to your addictions, innovative and banal. There is nothing in the razor cord but power. There is nothing in the fridge but wine.

Vapors

Fri, 13 Aug 2010 16:57:26 GMT

Sometimes, just sitting around, I smell rubber friction-burned on ice.

Net

Thu, 12 Aug 2010 17:23:15 GMT

Clothing doesn’t save you. Knots and buckles turning rope to uncles as old rags to armed guards.

Agape

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 00:35:12 GMT

Elvis is also dead. I'm taking my football collection and going home: regulation-size, large squishy vinyl, miniature corporate-logoed, beloved decomposing Nerf. They go in the smiling blue toybox with your baby picture. And rhinestones. The situation calls for rhinestones.

God

Thu, 22 Jul 2010 12:36:38 GMT

You're old enough to climb from fence to roof to check behind the chimney but your Frisbee is no longer there.

Religion

Tue, 20 Jul 2010 13:25:59 GMT

Just so you know, I am capable of a multiple-year boundary-setting exercise.

Shotgun

Wed, 14 Jul 2010 18:17:47 GMT

My son keeps her letters. I forget to write. This

Male

Tue, 13 Jul 2010 10:51:19 GMT

Don’t forget you’re at issue.

Cataract

Mon, 12 Jul 2010 14:14:36 GMT

It takes two. Or fake it. (Both positively and in a vulgar sense.)

Female

Sat, 10 Jul 2010 20:15:13 GMT

Don't forget you're at issue.

Read

Fri, 09 Jul 2010 19:41:02 GMT

“Railway schedules, baseball scores, and abnormal psychology.” Word by word like the names of the dead.

Luggage

Fri, 09 Jul 2010 19:35:46 GMT

He lied about the contents of his house.

Declination

Wed, 07 Jul 2010 13:45:57 GMT

The sense that the sun rises in the north, that you forever know latitude, longitude, elevation and cardinal points in relation to your first bedroom.

Korrigan

Fri, 02 Jul 2010 12:58:12 GMT

A firm, paralyzing conviction that everyone knows how to get to your house, where you hid your postcard collection, who threatened to kiss you in the backyard tent, what you've tried to forget, where your sentence ends.

Thicket

Wed, 30 Jun 2010 03:28:24 GMT

There will be a half-trailer. There will be a double-wide. There will be hyphenates for everyone: half-remembered ho-hum hanky-panky; half-mast fact-finding get-togethers; hush-hush passer-by check-ins; ex-officio bel-accoyles; self-service follow-ups; far-ranging life-size in-depth mind-blowing hard-core pell-mell adjustable-pitch all-weather fare-thee-wells.

Prostitution

Tue, 29 Jun 2010 12:00:39 GMT

Just because you're popular doesn’t mean you're going to be happy.

Bone

Mon, 28 Jun 2010 21:41:56 GMT

Undoubtedly involved.

Humors

Thu, 24 Jun 2010 23:46:46 GMT

Black bile, yellow bile, Paul and Ringo. And us and us 'til we break up break up.

Grievance

Thu, 24 Jun 2010 01:29:45 GMT

It is specifically built, holding flowers, and takes your particular hand in a general his and her.

Chum

Wed, 23 Jun 2010 12:03:26 GMT

In retrospect, there’s a lot of this. Recognition in the past implies ignorance of the present. Future tense implied.

Nest

Tue, 22 Jun 2010 01:09:24 GMT

Touch and it dies starving.

Junkie

Mon, 21 Jun 2010 11:26:02 GMT

All other considerations aside, there's something to be said for one perfect moment.

X

Sat, 19 Jun 2010 01:03:10 GMT

Simply, your point of view. Reflexive and derivative, scientific where it is mechanical, Middle Welsh where it is not Louisiana French, biblical and talmudic where it is not augmentative and unapologetically lowbrow.

S

Fri, 18 Jun 2010 20:35:28 GMT

It is.

R

Fri, 18 Jun 2010 03:02:12 GMT

Is it?

Bughouse

Wed, 16 Jun 2010 21:03:05 GMT

See also bugshit, bugnuts, bugged, buggered, bugward, bugwad, bagged-out, etc.

Finger

Wed, 16 Jun 2010 01:25:34 GMT

It speaks French. Unless you speak French, in which case it speaks Russian with a Kazak accent. When you were younger it spoke to you and with you and you pointed stuff out for it to point out, but one day it grew up and turned on you.

Violence

Thu, 10 Jun 2010 21:44:16 GMT

He passes through. He comes to join the association.

Collapse

Thu, 10 Jun 2010 10:38:42 GMT

Be ye Barysnikov or Yakov ye be.

Xylophage

Wed, 09 Jun 2010 03:22:44 GMT

You chip soup. You bark sherbet. You hack not carve what your host proffers.

Intellect

Tue, 08 Jun 2010 01:31:26 GMT

You think you know the flower in your pot. Then it up and dies on you.

Overkill

Mon, 07 Jun 2010 03:05:46 GMT

Only fascists think it's anything but funny.

Sewage

Fri, 04 Jun 2010 01:25:31 GMT

Indefinable and omnipresent. Everything which settles and soothes. Float on it.

Mother

Wed, 02 Jun 2010 21:41:50 GMT

Transitive and intransitive. Temp to perm.

Dream

Wed, 02 Jun 2010 01:48:35 GMT

A family which always drives away its neighbors, but knows where they live from then on and sends them heavy, empty envelopes at Christmas, postage due.

Explanation

Tue, 01 Jun 2010 01:53:23 GMT

You open the package and it’s not for you.

Grief

Sun, 23 May 2010 21:17:30 GMT

Without water days passed slowly.

Debauchery

Fri, 21 May 2010 02:05:48 GMT

A close-fitting hat with a visor extending well inward to a more generalized or primitive condition, often as a preliminary to major change.

This

Thu, 20 May 2010 14:34:51 GMT

Too many wells to be a barren land. Too many fat camels digesting mysterious breakfasts.

Couch

Tue, 18 May 2010 02:43:55 GMT

The striped bathing suit on your great-grandfather.

Ziggurat

Mon, 17 May 2010 03:12:35 GMT

When two sit together, and face one another, and occupy the same space for a time, and compliment one another, and certain passages open, and certain treasures reveal themselves, gold and lizards or golden lizards crawling from room to corridor to steep step, one upon another sitting together there in the tropical moist, and blood sweats between the rocks or a vagrant sits and thinks or a vendor sells hygiene or trinkets to tourists who sit together and face one another and occupy the same place for a time and compliment one another’s treasures, trinkets, or hygiene there at the peak or is it the base with all peaks lost in the block of time when certain passages opened and certain treasures crawled from corridor to corridor to peek out of and into the o'er grown altar born of tiny, complimentary steps.

Youth

Fri, 14 May 2010 00:58:14 GMT

Sun, positive, male genitals, spare tires, church keys, pocket knives. Anything that will do in a pinch. Anything you might happen to find in your pants.

Xyster

Thu, 13 May 2010 02:41:37 GMT

Really, anything I could say would be sexist. Or at best fraternal. Have you two met?

Water

Wed, 12 May 2010 02:24:07 GMT

Our green hill leads to a forest. Or runs under. Or our green forest turns brown over the hill. This forest fallen with trees where the hill meets its tall green guts. Where and how should we build our house? Our green hill runs under our forest.

Valence

Tue, 11 May 2010 01:41:36 GMT

Our house lies flat, walls fallen, roof blown away. From the cracks scamper guinea pigs and poodles shaking off dirt and mold. Our station wagon’s been packed and waiting for over 20 years.

Coffle

Sun, 09 May 2010 23:54:04 GMT

To divine from a distance the corpses of murdered priests. You are not required to know what you should do.

Question

Fri, 07 May 2010 02:52:42 GMT

There comes a point once you’ve made your point when it’s just plain rude to continue.

Judgment

Thu, 06 May 2010 01:15:49 GMT

A sexual perversion where inertia and nurture meet a prefab concrete slab.

Understanding

Wed, 05 May 2010 01:45:03 GMT

I knew the thing to do was slice fillets for my friends. But when I held him in my arms and knew I had to smother him or break his neck, I couldn’t do it. I looked around for mother.

Time

Tue, 04 May 2010 00:34:02 GMT

Increments of pets.

Survival

Sun, 02 May 2010 23:53:26 GMT

He held her dress responsible. Holding her, he dressed responsibly. Responsibly, he held her dress. She undressed in response to his hold on her. He undressed, withholding. She dressed and held on.

Reap

Fri, 30 Apr 2010 00:44:53 GMT

When the plow rolls over you, you stand up and make babies. Then you slice them into pieces like some younger, less forgiving plow.

Orgasm

Wed, 28 Apr 2010 01:35:54 GMT

I'd walk a lonely mile for a yoga joke.

Purpose

Mon, 26 Apr 2010 17:43:16 GMT

Next door, someone collected aluminum cans, naming each one for a holiday. Christmas, sigh, crush. Easter. New Year’s.

Nightmare

Sun, 25 Apr 2010 19:04:01 GMT

I know you. No, I mean it: I really know you.

Memory

Wed, 21 Apr 2010 01:22:35 GMT

Larger than before, our apartment seemed two apartments joined. We could’ve doubted everything, but chose only the one incident, which sounded like a psychotic episode.

Letter

Wed, 21 Apr 2010 00:44:27 GMT

You’ve a different potion now. Hold out your hand. You’ve a different potion now. Hold out your hand. Hold out your hand.

Is

Wed, 21 Apr 2010 00:43:48 GMT

Well-water. Hide of the gator which once served as atmosphere. Empty rooms as passages, sparks to the basket of fire.

Home

Wed, 21 Apr 2010 00:43:10 GMT

Dark closet behind clean clothes. Behind limbo. Just past a state of uncertainty, just inside a pocket enclosed by uncertainty and solid walls.

Gratitude

Wed, 21 Apr 2010 00:42:36 GMT

Her father held her hand. She was not one. She was not. She was not one of those.

Family

Wed, 21 Apr 2010 00:41:54 GMT

1) Without question. 2) Naked. 3) Alone.

E

Wed, 21 Apr 2010 00:41:24 GMT

Say it again. Say it again and don’t dare stop.

Diabetes

Wed, 21 Apr 2010 00:40:51 GMT

You catch it from cereal. By extension, a lifelong habit of predicting the illnesses of relatives.

Cant

Wed, 21 Apr 2010 00:39:35 GMT

The pace you keep. When you speak, the language you speak. Otherwise, you don't speak, and in that sense, you cant.

Bastard

Wed, 21 Apr 2010 00:38:26 GMT

One of each day. Synonym for “extol” having the additional sense of standing on a barrier island and feeling one is an active part of the barrier process.

Aunt

Wed, 21 Apr 2010 00:37:33 GMT

Living on sugar, hiding the cream.

Appropriation

Wed, 21 Apr 2010 00:36:59 GMT

He’s fish. She’s chicken. They’re fruit and wheat. Where do they live? Together. What do they eat?

A

Tue, 20 Apr 2010 21:47:27 GMT

An expression of misunderstanding or “getting with the drift.” Otherwise, the first and most ambiguous of your siblings.