When the camp director introduces God, he reminds us the man is just an actor. “His real name is Frank Collins,” the director says. “He lives in Knoxville and has a wife and three grown-up children.” He looks down at the little kids on the benches up front. “I want to make sure you know…
from the balcony of footpaths speak of the black horse & the dead rider how old the mirror is which brings with it spirits like tracks filled with basil from where you stand sing an antique song let your arms veinless hang by your side wait for the gypsy who took your life away you…
I’m staring at a rush of players on the screen—fragments of knees and shoulders, a collision of helmets—when the two aides in front of me leap from their seats and yell, “Go go go,” as if they’re rallying with fans under a blue dome of sky rather than with patients in pajamas and robes in…
The Look2 essay series, which replaces our print book reviews, takes a closer look at the careers of accomplished authors who have yet to receive the full appreciation that their work deserves. Reviews of new books can still be found on our blog at pshares.org. It was my good fortune to have been enrolled…
in terms ofdesign onebox is coloredorange the one you wantedalways is andsits in the bathroomof anyone’shouse causethat’s whatshe wantsit’s choosingthat wakes thingsup I wondered howlong allthat I needed and encounteredherewould come like a wavenot the shakebut the aftereffectsand this boxdid saythere was a wayto see thisthinga-loneJuly calledit calculuswhat iscomes in boxeswhat is notcomes in wavesthe…
(Where the woman in the iron lung breathes out every person she’s evermet, a big breath, like it’s cold and she’s pretending to smoke.) I said I’m dead you put blanketson my iron lung said Must be cold you’realways cold Dead I said again you saidThat won’t stop youfrom stealing…
Sometimes, after my daily dose of radiation, I would stop at a small bath store near the hospital to buy a bar of soap, perhaps, or a bottle of bath gel. I liked the little shop; it was holding its own among the retro hippie emporia of the neighborhood, no hint yet of tea tree…
The first time it happened he assumed something had crawled into her fur—a hornet, maybe, or a spider (it was a chill day in October, so it might have been seeking warmth)—or that the dog had somehow lodged a shard of glass in her hair while rolling in the dirt. He’d been sitting in the…
What a name to call your sister—Nada:Nothing—word I’d learned in Spanish,where d sounds like th, Natha, two-thirds of the way to Nathalie where, in French, the th sounds like t, as in Nativity: Birth, the opposite of Nothing, though all who are born return to it. Nada—the wordcontagious, even Mom fizzing laughteras she said, “Don’t call your…
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