careening the marbled mind down mathematical koans: What is the sound of 18 million miles clapping 82,818,537 kilometers away? Sunset compresses far below our feet, first lights of the Bay Bridge create a silver river below, my daughter’s hair trails uncombed. She grumbled her way up the hill and now she’s a conduit of wonder and light. We witness this… Read more →
After Jose Hernandez Diaz After my first psychotic episode, I turned into a common house broom. My long, sturdy handle was made of previously loved wood, and sleeked into a bunch of fastened blonde crunchy yet pliable corn husks. I swept the floors of all my neighbors, gathering up their stories, memories, worries, and hopes, then reduced them into neat… Read more →
If I didn’t know the words molten and crag how could I refer to the world beyond my line of sight? Breadcrumbs and visions fall from my chapped lips: great buildings leaning against one another for support, lakes draining, flaming comets crisscrossing smoke trails above, dinosaurs returning just as the first stars note their absence. Another day greeting my neighbors… Read more →
i’ve seen them crawl up from the lake draped in weeds whispering names and something worse than obscenities hungry gums flecked with gleaming scales can’t you hear them march in time the way the mud slurps with every step they are coming they are coming the faint handprint on the mailbox is no accidental collusion of rain and grime their… Read more →
Pink swamp beyond, claw me down to unstitch itches, full of opal emeralds and intact eyelids. Cold machine I cradle, please release the needle, poor tapered worm we are. In and unearthed. Slander the ragged remainder—good folk are fine, but a closed corpse can’t be crawled into. From below holler our apologizers, as I could reach out and take their… Read more →
Here she is now, all notepad and ears, Telling me a thought is a thought is a thought Is not a rose. Is not love, loss, or identity. I want to say: Rose is the colour of everything rose-coloured. I’m thinking: it can’t hurt, it’s only a dream. Mouth corner rising, she makes a note. Something in me takes up… Read more →
Our first summer together: the avocado tree in my backyard bowed its head under the weight of fruit so plump it would burst under the delicate pressure of your painted fingernails. The whole neighborhood must have heard us laughing — those little green planets in our hands! — because soon enough, the local mayas were singing at our doorstep, little… Read more →
every rabbit in a ten-mile radius has gone to flight. they’re late. they’re late. only some are lucky enough to have pocketwatches. most just run because time doesn’t exist only within constraints of humanity. so here the rabbits run because otherwise means death. what is seen as a cute & peaceful life is just another day of danger. the rabbits… Read more →
Naples was a heatstroke—everything humming: cicadas, burnt spoons, salt licking my earlobes. He handed me a bucket and told me to collect the broken ones. Shells split like lips. Jagged spirals. Rust-pink teeth. Veins that pulsed in the sun’s throat. The kind you’d never want in your pocket but couldn’t stop running your fingers over. He said the ocean spat… Read more →
The first fragment I recover, my father is bathing my brother & I. We are in our flat in Vernon Park. I am a child, six at most, submerged in a plastic bucket. No one speaks. No voices escape their open jaws. My father & brother in their boxers. The walls the colour of old blood. Someone asks me if… Read more →