Wow.

This is the November issue of mental_floss magazine. Inside is a fun adaptation of my jellybean story. That I wrote.

On the newsstand.

And that's amazing.

We Get New Cells

"Every seven years," she said,
"Not all at once, of course." She was
re-testing her food allergies, sneaking
peanut butter cups past her immune system on a Saturday night.
So far the Reese's had been safe, but the imitation crab meat
on a seaweed salad had meant
five hours in the emergency room.

I thought about the hot spear of your voice
seven years ago, and how if now the sight of you
makes my chest tight,
it's probably only natural.




photograph by Bob Fornal

Red Velvet

The cake collapsed. It toppled slowly,
so slow that at first we did not hear the thick tectonic slide,
or see the deep fissure emerging.
It had been five hours since we rolled up our sleeves
and applied our baking faces. Sarah was still
hung over from some church festival
or another, and I had spent the morning digging through cardboard boxes
to find the pans. We were wilted in the rising sunlight
but applied ourselves gamely. And here was this catastrophe,
this cave-in, this horror of a birthday surprise. The cake slid sensuously
toward the floor.

I called you in,
like I did when the floor was on fire in our first apartment. “Honey?”
I said. It might not have been urgent enough. “You probably should see this.”
The top layer of cake accelerated and we remained rooted to the spot.
Years ago the old me watched the flames bingeing on linoleum tiles,
my lips parted, my arms slack.



photograph by flickr user in my shoes

The Holiday Spirit

Every year she forgot; every year she looked forward
to decorating the cookies, the tree, the windows.
She imagined gingerbread men with pink bow ties,
a porcelain creche softly lit by colored lights,
popcorn and cranberries in neat, full strands.
This year the tree went up. She stood around, waiting for someone
to fill her hands with glass ornaments,
cranberries hard from the refrigerator, a bowl of frosting.
This year as the day went dark the family dispersed,
and she lay on the couch watching White Christmas alone.
As a gray sleep overtook her
she wished for new snow.