Houston, Texas

A syrup-slow blinking eye under a creek starting to freeze. A tiny silver box on the cherry wood desk holding missing items. A scratching sound somewhere outside in the night that you hope is a rodent scurrying by. The halo of light around a faint star, far away.

Color: The chalky gray of a scraped rock

Animal: Dracula parrot in too big a suit

Hattiesburg, Mississippi

Giant teal circles spinning in humid air. Slides coming down from pink clouds right into a boiling ocean. Cars bouncing like balloons on a jelly highway.

Color: Spiraled hay yellow and train green.

Animal: Mice piling a mound of litter up

Austin, Texas

Submarines on the surface of a lake. Thin like floss moving slow like a saw or a snake. Clasped hands at the end of an event or a funeral.

Color: 1-sided somewhere between red and orange.

Animal: Something sleeping on a soft pillow. Could be a pet could be something that crept through the crack in the door.

Dublin, Ireland

Solitary game pieces swept from the floor, kept in a basket. Memories returning and disappearing again within the hour. Pen marks that mean something somewhere.

Color: The warm steam from the kettle.

Animal: A bird on the sill looking like it knows you.

Paris, France

An old T.V. playing reruns, and the laugh track carries down the hall. Eels reflecting the surface of the water reflecting the sun. The change from summer air to that cold brush of a breeze for the first time in the year.

Color: A green room. Furniture, wallpaper, cushions, in a jeweled tone.

Animal: A dog walking away at dusk.

Brooklyn, New York

The heat a bottle rocket experiences pressing through the air. The cackle of a furnace behind the closed closet door. Typing the same wrong numbered code into the keypad.

Color: Cold Iron

Animal: Something flying by that no one saw, just heard as it swept past.

Englewood, Colorado

Riding an escalator in the mall, but it never ends. Waiting your turn to tell a story to the group but everyone keeps talking over you. The way sunlight makes patterns through the gaps in the carpeted staircase.

Color: A silver ninja star stuck in a brown door.

Animal: The sharpness of beaks

Raymond, Maine

The sound of an argument in the middle of a street. A cold drink warming up in a hand.

Color: The color red from the height of a carnival ride.

Animal: Unimpressed Water Buffalo

Brooklyn, New York

Following a map instead of seeking directions on a phone. The repetition of a push broom on dusty concrete. Puzzle pieces fit together into something other than the picture on the box.

Color: Purple like night lakes.

Animal: Shining fish lifting out of cold waters in a brown net.

New Hampshire

Gallons of cold water filling the house like a broken spine. Cars piled like spoiled pancakes in a demolition derby. Sand fields like the apocalypse.

Color: The glow of the moon draining like sickness

Animal: Fangs of every creature clacking at once.

Pennsylvania

Layers of cloth stacked. Stairs built to get to more stairs. The claws of a crab shoveling sand into a makeshift home.

Color: Muted gold on a picture frame

Animal: The royal look on a Shoebill’s face

Chicago, Illinois

Clutter in a plastic bag that unfolds into everything in a room. A hairpin turn on a dirt road.

Color: The hay color of an old bulb.

Animal: Rabbits sleeping in a tire.

New York, New York

Toothpick houses for clay wizards. A tray of cookies backing out of an oven. A melting pond like icing.

Color: White glass

Animal: A lily pad where a frog used to live.

Brisbane, Australia

The spindles, the shutters, the slats, the roof tiles sputtered across the open cavernous air like a decimated bloom.

Color: Green face/dentist’s drill

Animal: A falcon with two beaks for eyes.

Boston, Massachusetts

A ladder too tall, rungs too clean. A light on, on a mountain. The scorch of concrete. The tiredness of trains.

Color: Bright, but not lime green on a slab of a triangle on the cover of a thin paperback book.

Animal: An insect’s leg caught in the comb of a gutter rake.

Denver, Colorado

Desperate as a sealed envelope. Cold opening a door into a void. Driving to a singular cloud off on the horizon that keeps distance so it’s never met.

Color: The reflection of a jewel on a goblet on the skin of a wintered hand.

Animal: Leather wings draped like a sleeping flag.

Brooklyn, New York

Shell of a mollusk, shell of something planted. A misplaced capital letter. The longest road without a turn.

Color: Orange hue left in the back of the fireplace after everyone left the room.

Animal: 10 birds questioning you on a sloped wire.

UK

Shrugging instead of responding outright. A muted TV of just static. A warm hammer on cold grass.

Color: Apathy yellow, I guess

Animal: A dog running along a chickenwire fence until it stops.

Pisa, Italy

Motor oil in a porcelain hand. Friction of clouds like thunder in shape. Throwing a first pitch until it disappears behind the air we breathe.

Color: Semi-coriander

Animal: Hooded crow wants water in the birdbath.

Sydney, Australia

Capture a chain of bubbles in a prism. Quiet like a car ride in the wrong direction. Breath of the ocean on the side of a chain restaurant.

Color: Translucent as boiling water

Animal: Chinchilla rat

Mirfield, United Kingdom

The drip of winter pipes in the basement. Plodding instead of walking. Tormented in the statue garden.

Color: The black of a heaving ship merging against the depth of waters.

Animal: Stegosaurus in a toolbox

If you wanted quiet, you shouldn’t have sat in the aching armchair. A hand in a glass of ice. Digital clock with an analogue head.

Color: Cut red

Animal: Himalayan tahr lying down

Mexico City, Mexico

Slight strings of Christmas lights along the ground. Cold power. A dial tone that doesn’t stop when the phone gets put back. Looking down a mountain with a face.

Color: Light blue against a darker blue.

Animal: Monarch Butterfly with inverted colors.

Born on a TV channel. Wooden trees coated in digital paints. Fluttering wings are streamers torn from a screen.

Color: Abyss of the panel.

Animal: Technology leopard

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

Asking for the thermostat to be turned down. The plugged sink gushing the murky water to the floor. A hot air balloon capsized on the cliffside.

Color: The warm side of a color wheel folding into magma.

Animal: A ram enjoying thunder

New York

Dice in an empty glass. An aquarium that never gets cleaned. A fancy pen snapped in two.

Color: Yellow bars through the center of a closed arcade.

Animal: A python coiled inside of a baseball cap.

Chicago, Illinois

A floating city bus. Everyone’s gathered around. No one can get the door opened. Everyone’s worried it’s going to fall on them.

Color: The invisible energy of everyone’s hands clapping.

Animal: The dog won’t stop jumping up.

Patterns etched in a memory that won’t be recalled for many years. The glow of television screens through the cracks in the door. Old hands stirring the thin broth.

Color: Gravestone gray

Animal: The sounds you never hear from a jellyfish.

Minneapolis, Minnesota

Casual as a bowling ball. A mug with a funny saying chipped to pieces. Ice sliding in a pan.

Color: Anti-red

Animal: White-winged chough with a sore throat.

Washington

Rings of smoke melding into a circumference around a sphere. The clean line of grout coated by days and weeks. Flowers in the first moment of drooping shouldered bow.

Color: Brown like winter clutching a field between two city buildings.

Animal: Stick Insects converging on an abandoned ant hill.

Chicago, Illinois

A river of orange juice. Mountain peaks sparkling when the sun never sets. An underground train system glowing with speed.

Color: The intersection of orange and white on a swirled candy.

Animal: Sea turtle carrying sunglasses in its mouth.

Gambier, Ohio

Pictures of gray fields layer out on a tall desk. A hand waving through a window in the rain. Looking to the horizon and then seeing past it.

Color: Glue dried on purple paper.

Animal: Weevil with a backpack on.

Morocco

Yesterday starting over. Yellow calendar pages flipping on their own. Forward motion like a running back hurdling to gain anything.

Color: A cube of cold shades turning on its end.

Animal: Leopards

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Spirals left after an airplane loses grip of the air. A compass without a needle. What the coins at the bottom of a well hear.

Color: Inside when the closet door is shut.

Animal: A worn away, miniature sphinx.