Wolf throat, words pace
but don’t exit the mouth.
The man in the office
across the hall is going bear hunting this weekend.
All I want to do is jump on the bear’s back
and keep my eyes closed forever.
—from “Domain: Eukarya”, Fall 2018 (Vol. 59, Issue 3)
Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.
How the Bong-Kong...
"When the package arrived on Monday morning by overnight FedEx, a disturbance ensued. Mr. Rodrigo made an agitated phone call in his glassed-in sanctum, looking in turns horrified, elated, and apprehensive."
—from "Mr. Rodrigo's Identification Company", Spring 2018 (Vol. 59, Issue 1)
Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.
I have a vague recollection of a poem I wrote, back in Sri Lanka, when I was about ten. It must have been inspired by Robert Frost’s "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening". I don’t recall having Frost’s poems at home, so maybe I discovered them in a book in the Colombo library or at...
Like vegetation that finds
shelter in so many territories
I swell around the house
surge from your insides when
you feel death coming
—from “That Which Is Only Visible When the Wind Brings It”, Fall 2018 (Vol. 59, Issue 3)
Tell us about one of the first pieces you translated.
Some years back I co-translated a short story by Spanish author Jesús Fernández Santos titled “Although I Don’t Know Your Name” (“Aunque no sé tu nombre”), which appeared in The Coffin Factory. One of the most interesting parts was the conversations I had with my co-translator—the negotiations, the choices, the concessions that each party made the other. They focused on the meaning of words...
Now all the batterings sustained in gym after dusty gym,
red wet faces shoved into his, thick leather mitts
pummeling his...
Say it.
To smooth a section of one’s hair
as if in an unsurfaced
convulsion.
—from “In the Other Window”, Fall 2018 (Vol. 59, Issue 3)
Tell us about one of the first pieces you translated.
With my co-translator Juan Meneses, I first translated “Two Poems about Poverty,” from Concha García’s 2008 collection, Acontecimiento...
