my mother was never mistakenfor a junkshop trumpetor a yard sale saxophone, not even axylophone with its teeth knocked out,nor was she a late nighttone deaf lounge siren,but there was enough cacophonyand wild-ass mock jubilationcrueler than moneypouring out of the instrument of her throatto stun a family of bison,—from “Friday Night Fights,” . . .
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The first man Kalo ever loved was a hustler—a killer, too. In that way she was blessed. He taught her two things (more, but this is what she will share): all you got in this life is your balls and your word; play your hand close to your chest. The city Kalo . . .
Read MorePaati lived at the edge of a minor fishing village, in a small gray house darkened by caliginous algae stains that streamed down its outer walls and along the edges of its clay roof tiles. She was their mother’s mother, a stern woman, darker than their mother, with a nose curved and . . .
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My mother taught me that music can mean different things each time it is listened to. Sometimes a piece means all the same things it has meant before, but not always. It changes, she told me, depending on where you are in life. “Music is a journey,” she said. “There is a . . .
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To find a missing friend, follow the rot. When/IfYou find herHimThem Whatever they have become Crouch over the body like an old woman.—from “Learning to Eat the Dead: Juba” in Volume 60, Issue 4 (Winter 2019) Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.What comes to mind is “What Is . . .
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If I had really good eyes, I might see the threads that join me to the crowd, or even to one old man, this fellow next to me, for example, his cheeks as flush as a Christmas card Santa, his eyes moist, his hand over his heart as he gazes at the . . .
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You know the greatest myth? ‘Mirror, Mirror, on the wall.’ World’s biggest hoax. Yes or no? Because the mirror never says: ‘You, my queen! You are the fairest of them all. —from “Mallika Reflects on the Events of Discount Monday,” Volume 60, Issue 4 (Winter 2019) Tell us about one of the . . .
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When Courtney suggested over late-night tacos that we just go there, go to Standing Rock to stand with the water protectors and help out however we might, I had that dizzy recognition that this was actually something that we could do, and that I was scared to do it, but that I . . .
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In the heat, on the hardwood floor, I lay naked with an electric fan blowing hair in my mouth and my wolfdog drooling on my thigh.—from “Love, or Grieving a Beast,” Volume 60, Issue 4 (Winter 2019) Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.The first piece I wrote was . . .
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My husband swelters, fevered to a mercurial pitch,thundering from the raw ribcage of our bedroom. Where have I taken him to? To my ancestralhome, a country a point of reentry for us both.He, however, stands tall in these parts. From afar I’d spot him in thick crowds: a small volcanicisland lapped by . . .
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