Someone had hurled Purcell’s body off the old Catawba Bridge and left it raw and open to scavengers and the late summer heat. Lucinda Durand’s habit of keeping her head down when she walked meant she couldn’t pass by the swirl of orange and white fur without taking special notice.

Remember the old-time confidence of sons and daughters all chlorinated
in the summer dusk, under reliable stars, with popsicle-tinted tongues

We left, as they left,
our mothers’ bellies, theirs,
for a matter of breathing
chilled air with our lungs.

two girls coming out of the underwear store stopped on the sidewalk, in the window behind them a couple of pieces of elasticized lace pulled up over a plastic crotch

Who would not want the ability to so transform?
Even the cost – terrible – not impossible, but terrible.

The things I find easy and difficult about writing fiction are flipped on their head when I’m writing CNF. I don’t have to struggle in an essay to decide what happens next or figure out what my narrator might be feeling, which makes things a lot easier. However, writing about my personal life takes a lot more emotional labor.