Gjirokaster, Albania October 1908 In the mountains of Gjirokaster, the Fati hold the world like little snow globes in their hands, doling out curses and blessings, newborn by newborn, striking balance in the universe. Sometimes they shapeshift into snakes, sometimes into birds. Other times, they roam freely as beautiful women until their time comes to shadow a human –… Read more →
It was the second time it happened. You were rearranging your wardrobe. You had taken all the sarees out and piled them up before cleaning out the bottom of the shelf. You were deciding which saree to keep on top, the light-yellow one with small, embroidered leaves, or, the dark-brown one with white tassels when you remembered you wore a… Read more →
Andy was ten years old the first time he heard the trees ablaze with cicadas. He thought it was the trees themselves burning with invisible flames. He ran inside his family’s double-wide and told his father to get some water to put out the fire in the maple he liked to climb. His father, slumped in the recliner watching a… Read more →
a deconstructed pantoum There was a time my father and I shared the same air. I’d been new to this world, with so many days ahead, but now his smile is static in the silver picture frame, his face weary yet youthful in the afternoon glow. This world was news to me, many days lay ahead for me, while his… Read more →
I am staring at the carpet / every blue swirl magnified under my longing gaze / I wonder how many fibers it took to get under my feet / How many fibers it would take to lift every part / of my being someplace higher / How many fibers it would take to burn / the whole thing down before… Read more →
And on the seventh day, my body unrests into a less-than-holy reckoning. On day 27, I try to take a deep breath and my chest tightens not like a vise, but a bellows with a diaphragm left slaughtered— too weak to blow any life back into the ever-decaying fire. On day 64, the oxygen catches in my lungs and, I… Read more →
From black branches overripe persimmons / drop, sunset skin splitting open to show / their soft-sweet offal, and on cracked mountains / where grapes modestly ripen, old sorrow // is blasted away, like and unlike stone. / The tired, cool wind sweeps down to revive / her. No flood of dark wind, not one, can mow / it all—even here,… Read more →
And an upthrust of feathers before the downpour darting downcloud from grey cumuli still gilded and glowing— growing weather ahead as the last light settles in low through the rafters under tin— in the amidships of the shed the stucco nests. And the swallows swinging starboard, ascending above the side yard to catch the gnats that flex in currents beyond the curtain— before switching swift to port to dive for mosquitos more dangerous than lions.
on the first snowfall of the yearwe wrapped ourselves in our warmest coats, turned off the lights, kissed the cat goodbye, & walked to the pier. we were the only onesout for blocks. i rememberthe slippery dock & holdingonto your arm despitethe new york cold.i remember my glassesgrowing ice crystals &carefully stowingthem in my pocketfor safe keeping. theworld was a… Read more →
One evening about ten years ago, in a suburb of Pittsburgh, my twenty-six-year-old son, Matt, and I walked a few blocks to get pizza. Soft yellow sunlight, on its way past the horizon, slanted through the trees. A light breeze tickled the skin on my sleeveless arms. “I should have a sweater,” I said. “This is nothing,” Matt said. “This… Read more →