March 2023
In this issue
Contents
How to wear gingham shirts, like a 10-month-old
realizing it also has a pocket, wondering what a ten month old would keep inside. gazing at the blueberry stain as I vacantly rub a wet Q tip over it, again.
Five Poems by Esther Sadoff
We are this and this and this, cinders flaming like lighthouses enveloped by fog, someone tripping in the yard, someone stumbling through the door.
youse
I think slowly, with the deliberation I need to follow through sounds, not drop silverware.When I open my mouth, the oh sound doesn’t ah, remains round.
A Nemo amongst the anemones
The clear blue of the ocean deep swam in. And then out. The salt dissolved the knots in my stomach.
It is (just)
ah, here is the robin (Just) here, the wren (Just) the sharp tongue of the irises (Just) the velvet bud (Just) Light and Earth (Just)
Taxidermy
For finding yourself in collisions You did not choose. You could not avoid. The Flesh around the cleaved frame
Safar/Dust in the wind
Holy darvish, Shams-i-perende, Kāmil-i-Tabrīzī — I had not known then that I had been looking for you.
My Huckleberry Friend
He smiled with a calm demeanor. When I looked at Sandeep, I saw that he was at peace with his thoughts. Here’s a man satisfied at making decisions with his heart. The sun was setting at the horizon, and his soft features were bathed in the twilight. I envied Sandeep.
The Women Who Wear Black Hats
Most of them were women. Sometimes a man would join them, if he had known the deceased. This was always exciting; most of the women were widows. Mary’s husband was the latest to go, last July sixth. His name had been Carl, and his funeral was a good one.
Nasima
The next morning, I found Zakaria and, by the afternoon, Nasima was in my flat swabbing the floors in a green sari. She was dark and thin with high cheekbones and deep-set eyes that sparked. She told me she was twenty-five, a year my senior. She had three children and a husband who peddled a cycle rickshaw.
Broken Glass
In my room, the shadows were lifting with the promise of a brand-new day. My head pounded. The rest of the dreadful things that I could have said to my mother was stuck in my chest with no release or room. I spoke this way to no one else. I took a deep breath.
The Caul
Before her unexpected death, one for the books, really, my mother aimed for fancy. She smelled like musky southern roses. She exuded beauty, with her violet eyes — Elizabeth Taylor eyes — and skin soft as peaches. And yet, all the while, something unkind coursed through her, and I could not tell you why. Was it the town?