My first instinct is to translatethe word. Make it easier to understandwithout saying the word itself.I feel guikt for this mistake—for changing languages insteadof describing. Isn’t this an easy way out?—from “We Play Charades,” Volume 62, Issue 1 (Spring 2021) Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.I imagined my . . .
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But this I aspire to—how to do a job welleven if it fights you beak and wing.How to carry the delicate,difficult thingwherever it needs to go.—from “The Owl Catcher’s Son,” Vol 62, Issue 2 (Summer 2021) Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.In Tampa, near where I went to college, there’s . . .
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A coal-colored bird, perhaps a blackbird. The frenzied fluttering of his wings contrasts with the amiability of his fellow creatures’ warbling. You’d think he was flailing. This has been going on so long that I want to shout to make him fly away and escape whatever is causing his struggle. Is there . . .
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Corrosive timescan always happen. Forever youngold servant of morality.Catches trout with bare hands.A slippery salacious sin.—from “Can Always Happen,” Translated by Aga Gabor Da Silva, Volume 62, Issue 1 (Spring 2021) Tell us about one of the first pieces you translated.It was the poem “Soneto de fidelidade,” written by the famous Brazilian . . .
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Corrosive timescan always happen. Forever youngold servant of morality.Catches trout with bare hands.A slippery salacious sin.—from “Can Always Happen,” Translated by Aga Gabor Da Silva, Volume 62, Issue 1 (Spring 2021) Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.It was a text about loneliness, titled “Street. The Street Emptiness,” sort . . .
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My brother and I sign the hospice paperwork for our father on a Tuesday. On Wednesday, I fly to San Antonio for a conference even though half of the attendees cancel due to growing concerns about something called coronavirus. There are no travel restrictions or warnings in the United States. Public health . . .
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The baby encased in a thin membrane is something like a cross between a basketball and a cantaloupe. It lies at the woman’s feet on the bed. Her skin prickles at the sight of the living being moving inside. It is not trapped in her anymore; it is a separate being, helpless . . .
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When the forest fires in the northwest were no longer annual, monthlong catastrophes but a yearlong inferno, the question of what to do with the refugees pressed more urgently on both officials and those who lived on the ede of the woods. The occasional discovery of a moose in one’s garden had . . .
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I gave the devil a massage in broad daylight on hot summer grass. Skin on my palms began to burn and melt. Agony can feel good when it’s wrong. His moaning lulled me, kept me in the dark place. We didn’t dance but I assumed his pleasure formed inside me.—from “What the . . .
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I used to start each day with the same ritual. I would look in the mirror and say my name out loud. “Abigail,” I said , letting the sound of my dhort and long a’s surround me in the still -dim light. Then I would say “Abbie,” the name I used to . . .
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