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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Lord, let me understand this barter of essences. You’ve taken my bohemian soul and left me another, strange, cold as a distant star. I look within and don’t recognize myself. Have I spent the magic dust of my previous life? Where are my fits, my excesses, Lord? —from “The New Skin” by . . .
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Michael thinks about how his wife, Anne, is known at her work for making the right call when it matters most. She gladly accepts—preemptively asks for—the totally impossible assignment. Anne always gets the job done when nobody thinks that she, or anybody, will be able to do it. —From “The Rendezvous,” Volume . . .
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There is no sadness like today’s sadness—a spring day so achingly alive I want to breakout of my body. But somebody already said that. —From “There Is No Sadness” Volume 60, Issue 3 (Fall 2019) What writer(s) or works have influenced the way you write now?In my formative years—grad school in the . . .
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