Wondering why she has not heard back from her young lover (she has called him multiple times over the past several days), she despairs, locks herself inside her parents’ bedroom, removes her dress, and sits at her mother’s vanity, draping loops and loops of necklaces around her neck, comforted by the weight of them against…

She carries him to bed, raises and locks the safety bar, picks up Metamorphoses and reads aloud the stories of the gods, comforted by the transformations of their bodies, the dramas of their fucked-up lives, their children’s fucked-up lives, their celebrations nonetheless of love. Eventually, the worn paperback will fall from her lap to the…

Terrified he will fall sleep and not wake up, she treats her father like a Christmas ornament—fragile, afraid to shatter him. His skin is whiter than the whites of his eyes. She bathes him in her Jacuzzi tub, lifts him onto a towel and into his chair, dries the creases of his buttocks, hips, knees,…

The goddess weeps over her mortal lover’s body, says, In a flower thy blood I will bestow, and where his blood pools spreads a blanket of bright red anemones dotted with white anemones everywhere her tears fall, the red and white petals yawning open, winking closed, blinking open in the gentle breeze that burns her…

They fell asleep in the fetal position, his penis still inside her until one of them shifted in the night. In the morning she took his cock into her mouth and sucked, lightly, lips soft as a bee landing on a plum blossom. He reached with both arms and pulled her toward him, onto him.…

In this city, all citrus fruit grows sweet. Citrus, which smells just like Mother at the sink, washing. Mother, who had died so many years ago, now as vivid as actual, scrubbing oranges at the kitchen sink before breakfast. How many times had she done that? Year after year. Lighting the new fire of the…

After the bal masqué, her young lover (dressed as Eros) requested that she give him orders. Why not? she thought (disguised as Catherine the Great), and pleased him by telling him how to please her, and was this not love? She told him to stay the night, asked him to weave her a new myth.…

What’s on your mind, he wanted to know. I have more to offer than this, she thought, right? Gifts more meaningful than hooker stockings and stilted conversation over Christmas Eve stew? I want to tell you something, so listen, she should have said, but what came out instead was, Let me help you with the…

I want to tell you something, so listen. Every time it starts to rain, I would like to have sex. I’ve felt this way since before I knew what sex was. When I was a child and it began to rain I removed myself quietly from the company of guests and went upstairs and crawled…

Well, she said, you certainly have your hands full. He came to the door with an alligator oven mitt on one hand and holding a saucy wooden spoon in his other. She stepped inside and accepted his kiss on her cheek. Unbuttoning her overcoat, she spread open her lapels to reveal pale pink satin lining…

She parked, knocked, knocked again. He came to the door. When he saw her, he stepped out and shut it quickly behind himself. She explained her presence by leading him to the side of her van, where she showed him her sixteen monoflorals and two honeydews. Pointing out their different forms, she told him Sundays…

Only I can see you. There her Portuguese lover stopped, setting down the book and pulling her feet onto his lap, massaging, kneading, thumbs pressed into her soles. She was wearing black silk stockings with black seams up the backs of her legs—Cuban heel, thigh high, lace top. She had put them on after her…