circa 1946 Just after his release Mas took a psychological test. Three questions he never forgot: Do you think people are out to get you? Do you feel you are being followed? When you see a crowd of strangers walking toward you, do you try to avoid them? To all three he answered yes. And…
With the leaping spirits we threw our voices past Three Kings to sea— eyes wide open with ancestors. We flew air and water, lifted by rainbows, whales, dolphins thrashing sharks into birthways of the sea’s labor: Rapanui born graven faced above the waves—umbilical stone; Tahiti born from waka: temple…
I thank God for el Mercado, in Santurce, where we filled our bags. I thank God for the chopped translucence of onions above which we poured oregano & salt. & I thank God for yellow oil in the pot, the buckle & hiss of heat under a pan. I am thankful for the kitchen table:…
A cop car rounds a corner, headlights throw a man’s silhouette large against an apartment building. A window opens from his rib. A woman steps through and pushes off the ledge. She floats four stories. Doesn’t flail. Doesn’t scream or scratch at passing bricks. She is sure as gravity, her fall as inevitable. She floats….
There are deer here. I can feel them. Antler firm, pelt soft lingering close-by. Ghost deer. Albino white. The entire herd a miracle. Wondrous revelations occur rarely, once a lifetime. Here, twenty-four Snuggle treelines wintertime camouflaged. Sisters of mine.
Something in this long commute is chilling. The street between Karlin and Nessen City’s broken, carnage is literal and fresh: raccoon, a deer new since yesterday, crow, loose feathers desultory in the jet stream of a car. This afternoon a mallard looks more human in death than he ever did bobbing on a pond: face-down,…
The brown boy hits me, but says he is sorry. The brown girl, his sister, says it’s because he likes me. I say, Yuk! He likes me? Well, I hate him. The black girl pinches me and says, Scaredy-cat, tattletale, little pussy . . . I dare you to hit back. The white girl grabs…
Where any of us is going in tomorrow’s reckless Lexus is the elemental mystery: despite instructions he left behind, Houdin- i, who could outwit ropes and chains, padlocks and steam- er trunks, could extricate himself from underwater metal crates, could send forth, he was certain, a message from the other side, never cracked the curtain…
The souls we carry hunger for our light. They who feel unfortunate, close in on the fields, convene around happiness. They hear the sound of it like laughter, on roads, through rain-blurred trees, the smell of it boiled through bones and cartilage, the taste of earth deep and darkly rooted. Drawn to those sleeping skin…
Winter 1990-91 - Digital