We knew what we would lose before we had it, but I know why I stayed.When I close my eyes, I can still seeour kitchen skin and half a lemon left there,turning in on itself like the fistsour mothers made in every cardinal direction,and how late it was in the afternoon.You were rinsing . . .
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In another life, I join the hierophantsof New Jersey, drink petrochemical windsswirling across Route One, a new Delphi,speak their ethylene mysteries. Called back by my inexorable childhood, it becomesimpossible to ignore my sons’ own strangegifts: smokestacks stop smoking, chimneyfires burn green as pine trees, then flare out.—from “In Another Life,” Volume 65, . . .
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Seyyed Gholam Hossein Shabdari Kermani was blessed with a clitoris on his right nipple, or at least that was his pickup line. This is a story about him. At the raw age of five, he discovered pleasure while playing with a pink screwdriver in an empty garage, where his balding father and seven potbellied uncles played . . .
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I think you’re still here sometimescalling to me like the thrush at duskinside the woods where I lose my way.I search for you like a ghost myselfin all the usual places, stand on the shorethis side of you and speak to the riverthat flows and stays, stays and flows.—from “This Side of . . .
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Years after it was over and he was gone, I would think of the unfortunate womanhe was living with now and engaged to marry. Poor woman with the face so pale and flat like a slide down a mountain rock. Poor plus-fifty bride-to-be with the voice . . .
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I would have liked to see myself going into the little room at the Café Boscán enraged and pistol in hand looking for his face facing some other face among the tables. He spoke wet, moldy words. I’d have stuck the barrel of the pistol to his forehead and, sublime as he . . .
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OPENING: A pair of sheer white curtains undulate as a breeze blows. They are suspended in air, floating on their own. Behind them, pitch black. NARRATORWe are here, at a criss-cross of story and memory, place and time.We are here to witness and listen, to embrace and mend the fractures.Why are you here? . . .
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There was no Google where you could type in “gay liberation” or “trans” and find all there was to know. Even the term “homosexual” wasn’t used, and to take back a title from a pamphlet in FUORI!, it was an “unmentionable practice.” The first time I’d heard about it publicly was in . . .
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You approach and I offeranother girl’s name. Curtains, velvetand crushed, mostly closed. See it this way: coyote’s tooth danglingcoy from my locs.You approach (my hair draping, obscuring my face)and it falls Tonight, like disco lights, beckons my selfto myself. There’s just enough lightfor me.—from “Of Starshine and Clay,” Volume 64, Issue 4 . . .
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Passing through the yardChoked with thirsty grass,You might see the newestAdults huddled in tight circles. Never alone. The beast mother isAll they know. —from “Mother of Beasts,” Volume 64, Issue 4 (Winter 2023) Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.Good Advice About Bears came as a result of a guided meditation . . .
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