“Carry on,” they say,Even if you carry nothingBut your own desolation,And how much does desolation weigh?It’s like an armload of sirens.When I walk through the meadow,When I walk down the mountain valleys,When I walk in beautyI try to remember who I am.Nothing doing.Out there in space, Einstein washes his hair.A thirsty wind drubs the open…
THERESE Julia found it in a pile of old stuff. She didn’t want it, so she said she would give it to Therese. What was she supposed to do with that? Therese said—a beaten up old book with nothing in it but blank paper. Well, you like to do handwriting, Julia said. Therese looked at…
What is the importance of reading and writing in this moment? Those who come from overtly troubled communities and countries have long known that literature holds enormous power: the veracity that can bring about humility, death, growth, and change. As a child walking to school in the tumult of 1940s China, my mother saw men…
1. I know where I came from, born up out of the half shell dog house, roof tin fence rusted right into summer. The bended sag of the wire gate, the warm rustled fur, the worn-down dirt, the dog shit, and all of us, blind pups and children, new in our bodies, snuffling for mothers…
There are moments I smooth the crumpledfolds of my life and read them like a map.Travel all roads at once. I meet you again in a small townwe reach from opposite directions, a place where no one knows usyet we’re immediately known:two strangers. The map’s creases make as much sense, or as little,as the roads….
Think I don’t know nothing.Child.Stopped kissing me goodnightwhen she turned fourteen.Well.Every good thingturn to glass.Then break.She ratherstay away.Got my nose.Eyes, too.When she was little,they called her Lil Gail.Bet she don’t remember.She so busywriting things.Don’t tell your businessin front of Tameka.She will put it in a poem.She better notwrite nothingabout me.I rememberwhen I had her.Two and…
In Trinidad, the police have so much power, and they are so young. How to Wear the Uniform The police uniform is a cruel piece of work, the sleeved gray shirt a punishment of thick, rough wool and polyester in the Caribbean heat. Starched to the pliancy of grade-two cardboard, it invites an itchy ring…
For the families of the deceased buried in Jewish Cemeteries desecratedsince January of 2017 They came with small rocksand pebbles to place on the holy groundwhere gravestones had been turned over and desecrated.They came with their relatives’ plot numbersscribbled on scraps of paper.They came with tears in their eyes,they came with their memories andgrief unfurling…
When Freddy became a robot, a special map appeared in his mind. It alerted him to obstacles and told him the fastest way from here to there. Instead of waiting for the elevator one morning, he flew down the dozen flights of stairs, careful to leap over a big puddle of urine on the landing…
No products in the cart.