James Cihlar

This city park sign tells me Land that once was the highest point Is now the lowest, Just as where there once were trees There now are lakes, And in a corresponding spot across the river, Where there once were lakes, There now are trees. Curtainless windows at night Show the clear-cut inscapes Of once […]

“You might die writing a five hundred page novel” –Alice Munro What we must know at seventy-eight. The thrill a veteran with leukemia gets when comparing his slutty masseuse Roxanne to Alexander the Great’s wife Roxanne. Earnest Bottoms, a country scholar’s nickname for Ernie Botts, her neuter cousin. Death is on the horizon. We can […]

“Your father had an accident there: he was put in a pie by Mrs. McGregor.” –The Tale of Peter Cottontail, Beatrix Potter My endeavor is an assemblage of tissue, bone, and nerve whose code is to lift me up. The engine of music, an enterprise of cells, a corporation of one. Even though she’s seen […]