“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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—from “REDACTED” which appears in the Summer 2017 issue (Volume 58, Issue 2) Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.A CO[O]L CAT(My mama tells me I used numbers as decoration.) What writer(s) or works have influenced the way you write now?Solmaz Sharif for form as tactic. Ross Gay for . . .
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“My therapist says I’m afraid of vanishing.Last week his ceiling caved in, ending our sessionin a shower of words and water.I’m serious. I’m always seriouswhen I talk about therapists and cave-ins.”–from “Flourishing” which appears in the Spring 2017 issue (Volume 58, Issue 1) Tell us about one of the first pieces you’ve . . .
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“into it were pouredthe years that followedi’ll give you sugar for a good startas if you were a horse spursif earned. we still say that? treasurethe future, bedecked. we letit, i say to you: let it stick there!”–from “paper cone” which appears in the Spring 2017 issue (Volume 58, Issue 1) Tell . . .
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“I wish I knew the answer to the questionthe gutted, flipped-over caron Mulholland Drive is asking, or why the soundof fingers snappingfills my mouth with peanuts,the way I fill my mouth with peanuts at baseball gamesat county fairs and long shiftsat the pharmacy, when night hangsover the windowslike the kind of silk . . .
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“Coyote clings to the side of a boulder twice as a wide as his splayed body. He thinks he heard something down the slope, a small rock-slide or stick breaking. His fingers hold, but his boots scratch for leverage. Not that big a deal if you fell, though he doesn’t want to . . .
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“This is how we grew afraid.The moon wore its bright hat. The sun was a great wheelof fire. Children played jump rope in the crowded street, and everywherewas the autobiograpical,” –from “Blur” which appears in the Spring 2017 issue (Volume 58, Issue 1) Tell us about one of the first pieces you’ve . . .
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