Article

  • The Glass Flowers of the Blashkas

    Harvard Botanical Museum This is the story      of a father's faith in transparency,      the stuff of glass and flowers in light      that made him teach his son to look so much      at the water lily that its stem became a living      vase that could be made with white glass,      flames, and fine wire. In small…

  • Full Moon: Ceremony

    I drew a circle of my blood I stood inside and made a vow I said that I would never move Until the animals appeared I stood inside and made a vow On the men with coyote heads Until the animals appeared Or the women with speckled wings The men with coyote heads All my…

  • The Journey

    In Manik Sen's dream, the monsoons had begun. Thick drops of water fell tumultuously through the dark and the wind swung around in circles, from land to river to land. At first, in his dream, Manik was a child out in the rain, trying to gather the falling drops in his small palms. He let…

  • July 4, 1984

    The wet sand yields like the wall of a womb—pliant, enveloping each jog with particular resistance. Sand dollars and crab legs, the glittering dead cod, lie in line plotting the neap. The sand's a fine spot for ends. It conforms. Waves slip in it beating themselves to foam. A drag extends. Gutted by gulls, a…

  • All Hallows

    The square was almost deserted I held my fear like a knife Sharp but ineffectual Like keys clenched in a fist The square was almost deserted Except for the punks and the moon Except for the taste of desire Cold as an ice cream cone Covered in chocolate sprinkles A girl called out my name…

  • Extreme Remedies

    Inside the main entrance to Greenwood, "A Home for Retired Professionals," young Dr. Rogers came face to face with two tiny women in long, blue bathrobes with pointy hoods. They were peering suspiciously at him from behind the desk. "Who's that, Livvie?" the shorter one said. "Never saw him before in my life. Who are…

  • Heron

    Late August, and the pond is holding the summer's heat close to shore where leaf-litter has begun to form; even out at the center of things there are pockets of warmth deep beneath a canoe short-roped to a slab of scrap iron heaved into place once again on a scrub-topped boulder barely covered by water….

  • Degrees of Resolution

    Borrowing his grandfather's reading glass the boy next door takes time to educate us, summoning us for safety off the grass to squat on concrete round his apparatus, the tool aforesaid and a random sliver of paper. Now he tilts the glass to catch a single dart from summer's bursting quiver, training it on his…