South of Van, Kamal switches off the headlights. It’s superstition more than anything, but it makes me uneasy. “Are there checkpoints this far north?” I ask. He shrugs. “Possibly.” It’s supposed to be ten hours to Nusaybin, our destination, although that’s in a bus, by day. Not by night, without headlights, on our way to…
Sharon sells sex toys by the seashore. She drives her red convertible down the streets of Delray Beach, parks in front of the lemony condo off Ocean Boulevard. The lot is already full of convertibles, many with vanity plates: 2hot4U, hotMama2, and variations thereof. Inside, the snowbird ladies welcome her, their hair frosted and tufted,…
If on a January day you should get in your car and start driving on the steep Chalus road toward the sea, you will at last come upon a place near the dome formations where you’ll see a stone, a smallish slab of rock with the flat, written part facing you: “Mani, Taraneh, may your…
It was barely daylight when she left him on the porch. Hearing her stir, he’d gotten up, followed her around the house, his hair a mess, his eyes sunken, sleep-deprived. “Mama,” he said to her, a thing she relished, because up until Charles went to prison, he never called her this. “What’s that?” she said….
for Dr. NCB I’ve known rivers: Ancient, dusky rivers. —from “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” Langston Hughes She took her time, walking like a fawn, careful not to make a twig snap. It was getting dark, but she could still see plenty. The voice grew and rose, and was the color of mint, like what…
The swimming pool was empty because there was a crack in its side that needed to be patched, so Emma used it as a hideout when she wanted to get high. Bundled up in her purple down parka and a pair of silver Uggs, she would squat on the cement near a moldy accumulation of…
The sun hadn’t been up an hour when Angelina and Pablo Ramos tiptoed into the surf at Miami Beach, he sporting his ridiculous plastic nose guard, she in a petaled bathing cap, the rubber strap tight against her chin. The only sound besides the gentle wash of the tide was the fluttering of two seagulls…
The day Judy had kittens, Carl Bernstein came to my house. The veterinarian had called it a hysterical pregnancy. Sometimes a cat will think she is pregnant and bloat up, but it’s all in her head. The vet was so definite about this. Two of the kittens were white and one was a calico. Carl…
I’m fourteen and I ride a silver bike with knobby tires through a suburban landscape filled with cul-de-sacs. Fast as a mongoose. Jeans that grip my thighs and ankles. Checkered sneakers. Black turtleneck and a puffy, emergency-colored vest. The air smells like firewood because every house has a chimney and every chimney is burning. I…
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