Starbucks makes these Starbucks-green plastic devices that you think are stirrers at first, or sandwich picks, drink-garnishes topped with a smooth curve of green mermaid etch, and sometimes there might be that ragged-sharp middle edge where plastic tore imperfectly from its mold, and you can see the green plastic trays they snap out of at the factory, but after you… Read more →
The neighbor who never smiles steps out of his dress shoes in a parking space, leaves their velvet mouths to soak, tongues still lapping the milk-round bellies of clouds. There are no clues, only pennies pressed in fresh asphalt, smell of burn, black windows reflecting the same sunken face, until one day I see through—she’s surrounded by stacks of folders… Read more →
It’s a Tuesday when he wakes up and he realizes he is very much alone. The window, left open during the night, lets in a cool breeze and it ripples the Moroccan scarf she hung there many months ago. He glances around the room and he sees that the silver backed hairbrush that belonged to her mother is missing. The… Read more →
Anything transmitted by blood, anything “generational” makes you feel accursed or a queen, depending. If it is in the water, so as in mother’s milk and the cow’s milk and the calf’s. It is in airport souvenirs at Da Nang, in the soil, in the worms, in the brown glass of a Tiger beer bottle, which everyone on Facebook keeps… Read more →
She watched the fishermen drag the boy up the muddy bank. His hair the only thing moving. * Mother made her chamomile tea, while the neighbor whispered through the steam: twice the size— had to slice the seam of his suit— She imagined him split in two, the fine line between dressed and undressed. She dropped her cookie into her… Read more →
When the CNN reporter asks a woman at the Kabul market why after ten years of liberation do wives still walk behind their husbands, she replies landmines. Sometimes practical answers are the most unimaginable. I was going to say something about the half-mast flag of American exceptionalism, but then the sun came out on this, the last Sunday in May… Read more →
Books photographed by Tim Hamill Transcribed Excerpts from Book Pages May 4, 2006 Letters To Charley The hole in my life is like an open door swinging wide into the universe. I don’t know where you are or if I will ever see you again in any recognizable way. And that leaves me with a profound sadness that will… Read more →
Audio of the original song incarnation entitled “Roam” with its lyrics in italics infused with a metaphysical alter ego voice unravelling a layered story in bold [audio:https://midwayjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/07-Roam-1.mp3] Gypsy roses growing in the wild where I roam growing round the waterfall where the rain has carried my soul In body I bury her water, I dig beneath jagged rocks and search for bones… Read more →
There is a kind of pressure in humans to take what is most beloved to them and smash it. – Anne Carson If my despair shatters could I hurt you: Wobble neck snapped. In my hands. I break you into scream… ease does not wash me, rock water begins its pound: Swim, I tell myself, Swim— but deep… Read more →