astroworld, 1975

My mother, brother and sisters on the Bamboo Chute ride

at Astroworld, a theme park in Houston from 1968-2005.

it is grassy

A poem I wrote on the back of a crayon drawing in third grade.

i dreamed . . .

. . . Loretta Lynn gave birth to an enormous nail through a baby bump on the side of her torso.

my great-great-grandmother

pressing the flesh

The woman in 13D was so large she took up a good third of 13C as well. I looked down at my assigned seat, saw a seatbelt buckle emerging apologetically from beneath her left thigh, and I settled in next to her. "Am I sitting on anything?" she said.

catahoula

photo: jackie theriot

This is a photograph of Catahoula taken by my father in 1965. He was the only passenger in a small plane flying between New Orleans and Lafayette, and the pilot was able provide him with a great shot of his hometown.

i dreamed . . .

. . . I was standing on the shoreline of a lagoon, fishing for dinner, and someone in the sky was fishing for me. I couldn’t see who the other fisherman was. All I saw was my line disappearing into lagoon water and his line descending from the clouds, dangling a golden hook.