I. I’m born at the end of the world. That is, geographically, in a small harbor town in southern California where the continent climaxes in a blaze of coastline, beyond it lying only the mirage-like remains of anarchipelago, the great gray curvature of the planet, and the sun whereit sets. My grandmother lives there too…
We had a garage sale yesterday to let some stuff go. It was like an Independence Day sale, or that’s what we called it, cuz my brothers said people buy more things for holidays. I put out my metal roller skates and old blue pogo stick and Big Wheel. It felt sad to give up…
We watch them watch us, a family of four, a tribe “in the world” but not “of it.” Our clothes are shirts-tucked-in-to-the-real-waistline and modest-the-dress and the hat-cannot-be-backwards. We shuffle and do not know how to stand when our parents ask for the grocery manager. Can you turn off the music while we shop? At the checkout counter,…
Vivian is still alive when it happens, sitting alone in Chicago on a far northside park bench overlooking Lake Michigan, as the storage war hipsters start selling her photographs. I have not seen pictures of her sitting there, but imagine a faded blousy dress, the scratched bench, the spray of waves against the broken revetment…
When I was seven years old, my parents noticed I had perfect pitch and could play almost anything by ear, so they started me on piano lessons. But I had trouble with my fingers: they were somehow never independent and my struggles to keep from bending two at a time made my wrists tighten. I…
“Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation …” —Gravesite of President John F. Kennedy (1917–1963), Arlington National Cemetery (reinterment 1967), Quoting JFK’s Inaugural Address (1961) “The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou heareth the sound thereof,…
1. Lavabo y Espejo, by Antonio López García, is a painting of a bathroom sink and mirror. The sink, fused to the wall, floats. Its shadow grows west. The mirror above waits, empty, reflecting no person, only the square tiles of the opposite wall. On a transparent shelf between sink and mirror sit tools meant for…
If there’s one thing you learn working on a carnival, it’s how to be invisible. Despite all that bling and zip and wow, a carny’s goal is to straddle the distance between spectacle and crowd: to entice people toward the ticket booth, then slip into the background. In my family, it’s a long-standing tradition. Tricksters…
The two-lane highway clings to the lakeshore, passes through a rocky tunnel, and climbs Spooner Pass. I listen to music, telling myself my recent symptoms mean nothing, even as I feel a whoosh of vertigo. It’s late September, and the aspens are just starting to change—light green against the Sierra blue sky. It’s a beautiful…
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