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...]
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...]
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...]
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...]
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...]
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...]
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...]
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...]
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...]
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...]
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...]
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...]
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...]
Something About Rage and the Light Dying
I hadn’t killed us yet. My dad fidgeted next to me, exhaling loudly every few moments. Always a sensitive kid, I guess I was something of a Doppler radar of other’s emotions and my father’s nerves … [Read more...]
Conversations at Thresholds: a Contemplative Offering
I went for a walk this morning, as I do most days, before the sky held enough light to see in color. Morning joy is one of the most reliable sorts for me. Part of the appeal is living the visible, … [Read more...]
Love Song for a River Bank
The great wall of ancient growth slides its shadow across the river. Alder-cedar-redwood are the color of the afternoon water: serpentine. A breeze sweeps up from the sea. It picks out the leaves of … [Read more...]
The Mill Stones of History
My wife always thought that someday I’d be a big success. She talked about it since we got married, enthusiastically in the beginning, particularly when she became pregnant with our first daughter, … [Read more...]
Aztec Summer
And after I got laid off from my teaching job in Michigan, I moved out to Portland and lived on unemployment and savings for almost two years, running my credit union accounts almost down to zero … [Read more...]
The Muse Cuts: On Mental Health and Writing
My university lies at the center of a small farming town. It is a splotch of academia in the midst of many hay fields, and this year it has eleven thousand students. I’m here to learn creative … [Read more...]
Notes on the Sacred Art of Dog Walking
I read and reviewed Jim Harrison’s final collection of poetry, Dead Man’s Float, for the Missoula Independent in January of 2016. One of the first poems to strike me deeply is called “Notes on the … [Read more...]
Faleeha Hassan: My Life as a Refugee
Once my name appeared on a death list published in a number of newspapers and on some websites, I decided to flee Iraq and went first to the Turkish city of Eskişehir—on the advice of an Iraqi friend … [Read more...]
Eight Hours
A man, who was leaving, asked me to write a story. He said he was going on an errand – a meeting with his accountant, a lunch with his cable guy, a high tea with a small herd of white rhinos – I … [Read more...]
Animals, Seven Days Old
I. I start at the cheek, the slope slowing into the area where eyes rest. The dip of the chin, gray’s muted hue, smog on jaw. The ear, hair … [Read more...]
Edward Albee Speaks
I heard that Edward Albee was giving a workshop at the Omega Institute. I attempted to sneak in using my press credentials, but Omega politely explained that "all the slots are filled." So I … [Read more...]
The Seed
The sun beat down on my parents’ black Olds as they drove south to their honeymoon in Florida. It was 1937. My father could easily have afforded a new car which cost $540 then. He made plenty of money … [Read more...]
Being There – Michelle Bracken
Summer, 2004 We had never gone away together, never taken a vacation. My mother had always been too busy cleaning houses, changing diapers, and dating worthless men. But she made time, one summer, … [Read more...]
Subterranean Boy
There was a time that I fell in love once: with life, slowly with myself, and with a beautiful boy who completely turned my world upside down. A beauteous man child who taught me about life and love … [Read more...]
All Night You Dream of Ice and In the Morning Wake to a Skiff of Snow
After all these weeks of rain and gray, the sky a fitted sheet on the too bulky mattress of mass, last night there were white blossoms in the trees and snow on the earth and your hair grew long and … [Read more...]
The Only Man in the World
DADIO SPLIT FOR MOLOKA’I every weekend to supervise his Puko’o project. He was certain his pick-and-shovel laborers and heavy equipment operators were slacking off. I took turns with Troy, my big … [Read more...]
Under His Roof
At 19, just out from under my father’s roof, I was in an antique shop, a secondhand shop really, eyeing a copper teakettle. “Sit!” the owner said sharply. I sat. Then I saw a large dog, a … [Read more...]
Marshmallow Forest
Mud hardens on my combat boots as I step behind my sister through the sickle of woods dividing her property from her neighbors. The son of the previous owners, born intellectually disabled and fond of … [Read more...]
