In truth, who has the energy to be evil?One starts, perhaps, with bar fights, But the dentist bills alone have got to be crazy.Your money’s spent before you’ve begun. And who can actually afford a lair anyway?Wouldn’t we rather have that nice, Three-bedroom, two-bath, with enclosed garage,New roof, and exceptional curb appeal? And what realtor…
Translated from the Spanish by Pablo Medina That pasta in cream sauce we made when we finished,that pasta we ate still trembling(we left the water on the stove,on a very low flame,and fifteen minutes before the endyou flew, barefoot, and threw it inand barefoot flew back, remember?) That pasta back when dusk fellwith its smell of…
A lone snow tire rests twelve feet up a tree.Ten years of negativesscattered a mile down the riverbank. The leather sofa where we’d first kissedspotted in someone’s yard.It’s just stuff, he kept saying. I wanted to believe him.We were still getting to know each other then,learning how to handle something heavy. Stay positive? Be quiet?…
Neither pained by blameor seduced by praise, I kept my soul taut as a drawnbowstring, the last of ten children tithed to the church.At nine, buried alive for the rest of my long lifein service to Christ. I was his bride forever in bloom, braidsunbound, white lace veil grazing the floor, whisperingwives scandalized—dry husks unsuited…
We open Madlibs again,the ferry late the third hour, and you choose “xiphoid,”how you did twice before. I’m pretty sure we are never getting on the boat, I said,We could play again, you said. Along the breakwaters seagulls land like tourists, at this time of day, bloated with complaint— how silent must I learn to be? I askedand you said,…
If you think of it, everyopportunity is last minute.You aren’t great—just the bestlast. Handed a brink, most maybes diein the back of a throat beforelips can dawn. Folk like answers;they want their coupons clipped.Maybe my neck isn’t straightas a ladder—each breath is stillits own rung. The holes betweencarry me along, and this may bethe first…
At the Musée Gustave MoreauI looked at all the surfaces whileyou explained the stories. At the base of the spiral stairswe bared our eyes at Les Chimères,a painting pale and unfinished. What a heavy task he set himselfto finish with color and formall the empty limbs, I thought. Agitated by outlines, you read:He stopped working…
“See, one day, not now, we will be gone from this earth where we know the gladiolas.”—Aracelis Girmay But not today. today there is no funeral& no need for a burial shroud & a casket.in this room we are alive—each one of ustending the flowers that bloom on the smallearth of our hearts & watching…
Apparently I am this crying guy,eyes full of analogue worldin the gap betweenolive leaves, acknowledging the sea,acknowledging allis fucked as kidsand philosophers say and know best,but okay,for a silver-leafed span,storied but brief in the gap betweenolive branch and grief,I make this noise.It is enough. In the gap betweenbefore and gone already, my fatherand sister were…
No products in the cart.