He’s not so talkative, but the stars are out: there’s the Milky Way, there’s Venus! Not sure what that is, but it’s fucking beautiful, you say, pointing to the east, your voice ringing out like a bell.

He swears that he can feel them sometimes, phantom appendages on his back twitching and thrumming with unlived life. “I swear mummy. I swear.”

A hospital glows near the overpass.
Everyone in bed there wears a gown.
When faced with the prospect of change,
I’m not brave.

While winter sun squints at the ghost flower

dying in its shabby terra cotta

far from home

She purchased a pair of wide-leg jeans in a wash called agave and left the store with a stride so light she barely touched the ground. She had come to the mall for one thing: to be seen.

“People are observing when they first get somewhere,” Sam said. “Or when they’re about to leave.”