Edith fell deeper into a nightmare while her younger sister, Wiktoria, busied herself in the kitchen. The apartment was small enough that the sounds of Wiktoria’s two small children eating their breakfasts carried into the spare room where Edith slept and transformed into the soundscape of her nightmare.
Discovery
Todd—I have looked over the latest materials the DA sent you. You must be desperate! Are you sure this is everything? As you know, I scoured the depositions and interrogatories last week, and Phil has my report on those. Did you guys even talk to each other? How are you planning to defend Mrs. Bierman?
Letters to Santa
My brother and I are twins. My brother, Ben, and I don’t look alike, and our demeanors can’t be more different. But we are brothers, joined from that sparkling moment of conception, used to sharing common quarters, food supply, and our mother’s attention…
Where Is Paul Bunyan?
I stared at a room full of strangers, students, when my heart most recently shattered. The scattering of its pieces on the classroom floor can be attributed to the following four words: “Who is Paul Bunyan?”
A Week at Work
The last week of July in 2009 is the craziest week that Dr. Wu has had since she became a Rehab physician fifteen years ago.
Dr. Wu moved from the Midwest to the Northeast in early July, and thus far, her transition to the new hospital has been smooth. At the age of fifty, she is proud of her adaptability.
Out in the New World
He took the fat wooden hangers out, made room for his Bible, Bakunin’s manifesto on anarchy, thankfully thin, stuffed neatly between testaments. The guards at Castle Gardens would no doubt rifle through his dirty frontier shirts and gravy-stained zupan.
Another Rainy Day
Rainy had left the backdoor open to the cold sweat of the world, its swinging clanks her remains, as if she were now the wind itself – whipping around the loose, lilting porch and flying off the faded shingles of the roof…
Parable of the Persistent Widow
When Carlito’s son suffocated to death in the back seat of his father’s brand-new Mercedes SUV, Caridad García felt all her suspicions had been confirmed. Maybe her son’s sudden fame and fortune were not a blessing but a curse. Everything had happened so quickly since the release of Carlito’s single “Love a la Cubana,” a song sung in English to a salsa beat.
“First taste,” “Cooks River Avian Real Estate,” and “Breakfast”
Obediently, the baby
opens her mouth
to the spoon.
She has watched the adults
opening their mouths
around the table for so long,
Not Mom
Dear Paul,
When your hospice nurse called, I was drumming my fingers in a parking space at a Bixby’s drive-thru, aching for the large, 550-calorie caramel cappuccino I ordered online. Anything to get me through Mom’s 4:00 cocktail hour.
Shy Demon
Osuke felt a twinge of unease as he strode across the scarlet carpet toward the host in the velvet robe with glimmers of silver. Megumi looked glad to see the young man and pleased that he had picked out an elegant dark suit for this occasion.
“The Voice of Wind,” “Coyote Laughing,” and “Some Instructions for Living”
Listen to the wind, its
strings and strains of
language and song
pulling you to your feet;
a ragdoll animated and living.
A Life and Death Visit
I’m not allowed to go to Grandma’s hospital room because I’m only twelve years old, and the hospital regulations say I need to be at least thirteen or accompanied by an adult.
Was That All it Was?
To my parents’ dismay, I took full advantage of New York City’s disco era in the late 1970s till the mid-80s. I did go to NYU undergraduate, but if someone asks, “What was your major?” I answer “Night Life.”
The Red Wheelbarrow
Something was different when Danny closed the wooden picket gate behind him at Aunt June’s. The first thing he noticed was an odd smell, something mixed in with the pines along the path.
Prison Palette
Athletic vitality invites gym walls of vivid colors, players spilling onto courts with crimson tones fitting coming contests yet pale walls circumscribe this setting, matching well-worn olive sweatshirts, khaki pants and lemon tees as men of subdued spirit shuffle in beneath torn net strands, symbols of their fall.
The Call
I was walking the trails through the oak forest on our property, looking for the pair of pileated woodpeckers I could hear furiously pounding their heads against a tree trunk. My phone rang with a similar rhythmic urgency in my pocket, as though in conversation with the woodpeckers.
Quantitative Unease
3.2.2_
Hi. My name = Aioli McCoy. And, first things first, I think this is stupid. And by this, I mean you. Diary. Journal. Thingamajig. Honestly? I’m only writing to make Pauleen (wife) happy. Due to, earlier, when I came home from work, she sat me down, put on serious face like she had big news to share, then handed me this black moleskin.
“She Comes. She Goes. She Comes.,” “On the Fence,” and “In the collection”
She disappears
takes with her
something created together
I move forward to where she stood
the absence of her presence
leaves behind a vacuum
“Wood Wound Pareidolia,” “Gravity,” and “August 6 with Kokeshi Dolls”
The possible face stares back at me
from across the weedy, ragged backyard,
its dark grey oval rising from the darker
striated bark of the sweetgum.
Daughters of Mindanao
The water level rose to the floor of their hut despite it being a few feet off the ground. Nimuel rushed around their home, gathering everything he could carry while Ligaya got herself and their newborn together. She moved slowly, still sore from giving birth only hours before.
“Starlight Stitches,” “A Collection,” and “A Moment Lost”
In the galaxies pooling in the waiting room
where black holes hum the prelude
to creation
we chart the shushed diagnosis
embossed in the orbit of
the body’s forgotten comets.
Cherry Blossoms
Cherry Blossom Forest
“The Handkerchief,” “Elfie Cooks Oatmeal,” and “Ascension”
My mother’s white handkerchief
lies on my hand, the corners
embroidered with small flowers,
pink, blue, white. I unfold it
and find the yellow feather,
where I put it eighty years ago.
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