“There are queens and divas here, holding notes and holding sway and cloaking themselves in poisonous ways that march on no feet. They say to be careful here in the desert, that the uninitiated will pay like the gamblers they are, amateurs welshing on a price they negotiated themselves.” —From “Desert Suite . . .
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“But it always happens, and at a certain point the torpor broke up as if the whole garden had completely awakened at the same moment; I believe it coincided with the appearance of Baroni. The oppressive fragrance turned into the air’s perfume, the trees and plants regained their habitual splendor, and even . . .
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“The poems of my friends will never be lost in layers of white death.I read them aloud and hear them breathe.Gene’s Dostoevsky & Other Nature Poems. Alvaro’s little brothof a train in the distance boiling down to nothing.This is not an elegy but a love poem.This is not a love poem but a praising . . .
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“In the Maltese Church the American kissesher dark groom and the priest watchesbefore he grants the blessingwhy did the choice land on Prague why on this rainy daywhite veils belie nothingbut the girl in the wheelchair wants to make itover the bridge before the lightning gets going”—from “Rainy Sun” by Ilma Rakusa, . . .
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“. . . as the sea commits to its mutability, and when rainstrikes the earth, commitment,as one commits to breathe.”-From “The Commitment of Rain” which appears in the Summer 2017 issue (Volume 58, Issue 2). Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.Although I have been writing and publishing in . . .
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“It’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to,says my son at his bris, though it’s my partyand I carry the weight of a hundred generationson the tip of my penis might be more apt.Or: It’s my party. Let us pray.” —from “Meditation in the Key of an Exhale,” from our . . .
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“In the enormous, moldy bathroom with damp, flaking walls leprous with saltpeter and black-speckled marble tiles that make each step and splash resonate, as in ancient Roman thermal baths, Rehvana climbed into the tall, dark green serpentine bathtub; she sank into the colossal lion’s claw-footed tub. Suppressing her shivering which could barely . . .
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“Lena smiles and bounces a little bit. I don’t have a particularly bouncy bed and it looks silly that she is trying to bounce on it. Her cheeks flush.‘Have you seen Girls?’‘Yes.’‘I’m in it.’‘Yes, I know,’ I say. ‘You’re everywhere.’”—from “Lena Dunham Is Everywhere” which appears in the Summer 2017 issue (Volume 58, . . .
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“Amin didn’t see him. The brake pads clenched, lifting Amin out of his seat, and then he saw the child. Since dashing into the path of danger, the little boy hadn’t moved. He was seized by a question, and the force and authority of its asking was the closest he would come . . .
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“Say, white girl,” Liana could hear the brown-skinned girl behind her whispering in the middle of Pre-algebra. She knew she was calling for her, even though Liana wasn’t white. At the old school, everybody knew Liana’s daddy was Creole, that her mother was light-skinned black. Also, at her old school, there had . . .
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