Raised by grief, raised by hunger, the bowls of cornflakes she ate alone at night. Raised by the 4:00 a.m. ring calling her to open up, roughnecks waiting at the café door. Raised away from language, English she was not allowed to speak. Raised into anger—men she was not allowed to see and the one she sneaked off…
I would have hefted heaven and earth aloft to keep your hearts thumping in your thorny chests,your world-weary lungs filling like accordions, your eyes shining with visions pierced by glee. But you performed your leave-taking dutifully— such are nature’s commandments, its ordained cycles—so, though your vanishing slowed my life with sorrow, I no longer saw you in the wavering…
How would I know, don’t you seeI haven’t washed my hands? Howcould I even talk about anything?I don’t remember anything fromSyria or my childhood or anything.Why would you ask such a stupidquestion? Your father should havebeen a monk. They come to thiscountry with money. Money, moneymoney. Why do you think it has takenso long? Oh,…
What birdwas thatthat justflew throughmy mind?
Open carry, open for business,open and shut case. Openlike a store. Open like a vault.Any opening in my defenses is yourfault so I close it all up as tight asI can. Then I fold closed bothmy hands again. This gesturemakes a fist. It makes me listlessand makes me brisk and makesme wish for the bicycle…
Transcendence The first thing is silence: the muffling power of snow, that Fairbankssnow hanging on every limb and twig. No noise from nearby roads, nosounds of planes taking off at the airport. Just my skis gliding along,my poles crunching the snow. My breath, and if I stopped to listen, thesound of my heart beating. is…
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…
When someone says It’s the middle of nowhere,they don’t mean New York or Boston or LA,they mean where you and I are from—Tennessee and West Virginia,Kentucky and Mississippi and Alabama.Those rural places where our lives are unfolding.Where my grandmother Maria Garcia Peña is laughing her big golden ringsof laughter in the kitchen above a frying…
On the first day God began splittingthings, and time began.The angels gathered in little groups—even though it was forbidden—and said things like: remember when deathand life were the same?Remember the language of trees?Remember love before hate became its own thing? God said remembering was just for Sundaysbut people were already beginning to ignore him.Remember God?…
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