November 2019
In this issue
Contents
So Much New York!
Marie-Laure and I frequently met in the Manhattan School of Music hallways as we staggered out of practice rooms at closing time. We were both..
How I Used Cooking to Rebel Against My Mother
There’s nothing as dark as a Swedish winter day long after the leaves have fallen but before snow brightens the ground. With the sun eclipsed..
The Home Front
In October 1941, my father found himself in Reykjavik, tried to get back to Charleston. Orders arrived: he was to sail on the USS Salinas,..
Violated
The Sukshma Series is a first-hand account of an educated woman of post-colonial India reflecting on how the social and political set-up of the country defined the status of an Indian woman.
Walk With Me
We look at the world once, in childhood.The rest is memory.Louise Glück These streets birthed a humdrum infancy,a Salvadoran consistency.The calmness of tortillas, thick, our..
Mandir
I found a mandir once in Kathmandu,Enclosed in vines, surrounded by a street, With no door visible, its carvings worn…And asked which god it was devoted..
Psalm for A# 208485031
Salif says you got fat in detention. Brother,how do you laugh with your teeth showing?We starved you in Alabama, they burned downyour house, your motorcycle,..
Haiku Soup & Try
Haiku Soup Swimming in haiku —A natural progression,Drowning in it too Try Try not to break, eggs Your mother won’t forgive meWhile she’s simmering CategoriesPoetry
Pyrolatry
I’ve had this mistress since the dawn of time – who wears a smoke-ruined perfume that leaves me a dizzy fool – Flowerage de Feu..
A Light Eulogy
Now for the eulogies. My brother goes first. He sobs. He and my father were close. They were both good at science. I can’t say..
William
At 11:45PM on a February Friday, William dusts the snow from the shoulders of his full-length, dark wool business coat and enters the office of..
Until They Fall
The dentist says, “Oh, oh…” her hands in my mouth while her assistant holds the suction gun limp-wristed, like a pencil she might use for..
Heavy Wings
John didn’t come home that night. Reports said that a young Black man, suspected of robbery, was attacked by police officers on the corner of..
Deception
Mic, feeling every one of his fifty-four years, sat on a stool, hunched over the hundred-year-old mahogany bar scared with burn marks from the years..
Rain, Rain, Gone Away
It’s never a dark and stormy night. Never a dark and stormy day, either. Ain’t been since ‘fore I was born. The sky’s straight-up robin’s..