After repeated requests, my father, in his later years, handed me a hand-drawn map of a place in eastern Europe on the river Dnestr, which meanders to the Black Sea. The map came with a page and a … [Read more...]
On Waiting
Standing at the stove, I am stirring the bright white of milk, waiting for it to set. The kids are asleep, and though I have other things to do, tonight I have chosen the anti-rebellion of cooking low … [Read more...]
Seeing Las Meninas in Madrid, 1994
I keep a postcard of Velázquez's Las Meninas above my desk at work, and I can't look at it without thinking of the summer I spent in Spain with R, the last summer we were friends. That summer I was … [Read more...]
“Art has side effects,” I said.
“Art has side effects,” I said. quitting art finally at death I woke up at the end of a dark hall … a man was staring at me intensely … I felt a shock run through me … it was a guy from the … [Read more...]
essays in the face of uncertainties
Canadian poet Lisa Pasold posts a photo of her neighbour’s cactus plants, suddenly in bloom with the hashtag #poetrykeepsmesane, along with a quote from something of mine. While I appreciate the … [Read more...]
Convergence
I grew up in a small village in the countryside. The village did not have street names; in fact, streets were rare: most of the village roads were dirt with patches of tar and gravel, there were no … [Read more...]
Spot the Differences
When my mother met my father in 1992 in Chicago, she was 17 and my father was 20. My mother was a senior in high school, and my father out of school and working, already a supervisor at the Luster … [Read more...]
Chasing the Moon
Our story begins in a scalding desert city, the aroma of burning nearby: burning salty corn the size of a pistol and burning garbage on the side of semi-paved country roads. Strangers minding their … [Read more...]
The Pointless Forest
It’s assuming a lot to say we were in love. We loved each other, though. We were nearly the same person if we pretended hard enough. Two girls hiding in the most wasp-riddled part of the tire park, … [Read more...]
Candy Says, by Kaiya Gordon
I have a Google Drive folder full of things people say Candy said before she died. I have a 66-page book filled with the names of trans people who were killed last year. Almost every source filed in … [Read more...]
Deadlift, by Cindy Bradley
I’ve heard it said that when properly executed, the deadlift is an almost perfect weightlifting exercise. The name of the exercise refers to the lifting of the “dead” weight without momentum, lifting … [Read more...]
Food Service, by Caitlin Sellnow
“There she is!” Pastor Alice crowed, “The queen!” I looked up from the stack of recipes I was straightening. I was a little curious to meet Remington royalty but, really, I was more concerned with … [Read more...]
The Garden of Earthly Delights
I. In early 2015, I was invited to a popup art show in San Francisco’s Dogpatch neighborhood. My good friend Megan, an actor in the event, described it as a living replication of Hieronymus Bosch’s … [Read more...]
Person to Person
1. On the fiftieth anniversary of the moon landing, this summer, I was thinking about my grandmother Esther, in Brooklyn, and how in 1969 her orbit was bingo, the flea market, Eighth Avenue. It was … [Read more...]
Surfacing the Toxins
The twinge beneath my left breast was slight but insistent. My heart thrummed its customary rhythm, but every tenth or twelfth beat caught like a guitar string plucked by a hook beneath my sternum. I … [Read more...]
Sait Faik Abasiyanik: The Man Who Faithfully Embraces the World
His face is hung on the top of my bed. Most of the time, when I walk towards the bed, I see the reflection of his face. I burst in anger. Before I go to sleep, I plan on how to get rid of him while … [Read more...]
When Fear Sets In
I decided not to attend my supervisor’s going away party held in the hallway right outside our office. Outside the window, however, I noticed that the clouds in the sky sagged: each thick, depressive, … [Read more...]
How to be silent in German
I asked Lukas to translate Der Spiegel for me so I could read the German murder trials without missing any details. The victims were mostly women, the murderers, men. Sometimes the victims were … [Read more...]
Flash Flood and Visitation
For the third time this year, the weather man said we got a “hundred year rain” overnight. Alarms blared through our phones earlier, at three in the morning, like syncopated electric trumpets on the … [Read more...]
The Baby in the Air
The woman did not survive but the child did. Her fall was cushioned by the body of her godmother, who hit the pavement first. He had first seen the photographs while in college, in a class called … [Read more...]
eyes on / horizon by Emilie Kneifel
torn from a frantic nap into my perch in the corner. drowsy stare makes a masterpiece. the shadow paint. candied branch drip. white shoes on wet grass that glow like a fizz. //// /// /// / /// / … [Read more...]
Birds, Caves, Time by Nels Hanson
Murmuration To shake one’s head, to murmur “I don’t know,” implies a certain faith, thisevening’s swerving, changing cloud of birds above the failing farm reminds me. We didn’t invent our bones … [Read more...]
My Coleridge: On Five Poems by Sara Coleridge
‘Passion is blind not love: her wondrous might’ Passion is blind not Love: her wondrous might Informs with three-fold pow’r man’s inward sight: – To her deep glance the soul at large … [Read more...]
No Place Like Home
“Why don’t you bring your friends over? You’re always locked up in that room,” her hands gesture while her foot is on the pedal. She insists on concentrating her gaze onto me as she “talks,” but … [Read more...]
Intimacy with Doors
Doors are a foundation of our psyche. To understand this, we must ask ourselves: how do we move through doors, how do we conduct ourselves near doors, as we flit through our busy lives, bags in hand, … [Read more...]
Seizure
It is late in April, one of those cool and wet mornings when the sun’s light is hazy and blue. I wake early, escape out the front door of my suburban townhome with a cup of coffee, tell my husband … [Read more...]
Are Hungry Ghosts Just Ghosts with Borderline Personality Disorder?
“You need to stop waiting for everything to click,” the psychic said, pulling her clasped fingers apart and then placing them together again, in a sort of locking motion. “There is no magic moment. Is … [Read more...]
They Saved Me from Myself by D. Nolan Jefferson
The first gay bar I ever went to was a lesbian bar called The Flame. It was on the edge of the gay neighborhood called Hillcrest in San Diego on Park Avenue. I worked in nearby Balboa Park, taking … [Read more...]
Desert Alignment
Nothing is born, nothing dies. Nothing to hold on to, nothing to release. Samsara is nirvana. There is nothing to attain. When we realize that afflictions are no other than enlightenment, We can … [Read more...]
Endless Preface to an Imaginary Work
Light is Speech Marianne Moore, What are Years 1. walking on water in the morning light, walking on water near the boat of saints, the water clear as the conflagration of the dead upon … [Read more...]
An excerpt from Rachmil Bryks’ memoir, The Fugitives, translated from the Yiddish by Yermiyahu Ahron Taub
Translated from the Yiddish by Yermiyahu Ahron Taub. Published with the permission of the author’s daughter, Bella Bryks-Klein Translator’s Note: “This is How It All Began” and “Fugitives” are the … [Read more...]
Milkman by Anna Burns: a soundtrack to street harassment
Milkman Since my car fell apart in November 2018 I’ve been commuting 12 miles to work without one, via crumbling New Jersey, USA public transportation infrastructure. The roughest parts of my commute … [Read more...]
Exposed by Patty Somlo
The day after a man exposed himself to me on the secluded tree-lined trail, I reluctantly switched my walk to the more open, well-travelled path. I’d known, as every woman does, that walking alone … [Read more...]
God and the Magical Potato Chips by Jennifer Jordán Schaller
When I was a six-year-old child, it was the eighties. I sometimes stayed overnight with my Grandma Virginia in the South Bronx. My Grandma Virginia only spoke English when she talked to people like … [Read more...]
Are Made Of
You remember each new encounter, trying unsuccessfully to hold back the salivating. How your mouth shaped around every new one in an attempt to make itself one with it, tongue exploring crevices and … [Read more...]
Body Bereft of Fitton Farm
1. Under a gray sky, the sun came around a corner like a drunk with a knife, a slice of light on the ruins of our childhood: the houses, sheds, barns, and junkyards that were once our farm on County … [Read more...]
Lexington Avenue
The span of Lexington Avenue between 25th and 29th streets is flanked on either side by Bangladeshi, Pakistani and Indian restaurants; by buffets of masala chicken and palak, floating in layers of … [Read more...]
The Accidental Monster: Salomé, Mom and Me
It is strange that the husband of my mother looks at me like that. I know not what it means. In truth, yes, I know it. —Oscar Wilde, Salomé When Oscar Wilde wrote Salomé in 1891, English … [Read more...]
Icarus Regrets Every Tired Muscle
At the base of my spine glows an orange orb, free-floating amidst the Harrington rods and titanium cage. My low spine fused, my narrative nerves pinched and running the length of this mortal cord from … [Read more...]
Scylla
Central Park in spring was magical. Leaves began to reappear on bare trees; the sun rose earlier—soft and shy—just waking up after winter, turning everything into a warm amber. It all looked new; even … [Read more...]
