self ghost introduction
the worldbuilding is three stories Yongin pours rain sheets stained American on the enclosed balcony laundry hums a painting Western oils outside Korean brush indoors
Desiderium
After the funeral, I dipped out of my deadend street. I crisped in the glow of lawns buzz cut to the soil’s fur. As I spilled into the city veinsof weathered tar, I saw a cherried cig unfurling in the windy mouth of an intersection, but it was flamesof frayed wings as I trolled closer. I braked in flumes of… Read more →
Energy Processing is a Characteristic of Life
Every morning my partner eats a palmful of medication one hour before breakfast, then gazes into her empty coffee cup, forecasting, her body tricked into believing her thyroid exists, the emptiness of her belly aiding absorption. Potted cat grass grows on our apartment windowsill overlooking the dead lunar landscape of December in Maine. The cat grass photosynthesizes winter sunlight, weak… Read more →
An hour before sunset
Grumbling arrives as we workshop creative ideas in a volatile space. Better to cluster, align. Like a starling finding its place in an erratic sky dance that disrupts boredom and desire. We assimilate, murmurate. But if the near-dark sky calls, perhaps today a single bird can change the course and the dance, and maybe the wind itself will follow.
Doikayt
n. Hereness. n. Diaspora n. “the Yiddish concept… used to describe practices of political organizing and cultural activismamong Yiddishists and Jewish socialists especially during the interwar period.” Hershberg, from the German, meaning “deer hill”or “dear hill”, depending on animism’s sweetness.Moved eastward, sloped downward phoneticallyto Gershberg: Odessa, Baku, Syktyvkar, Brighton Beach. And the Auerbachs: St. Petersburg, Tarnow,Warsaw, Berlin, Krakow, Rzedzin, Plaszow,[Oswiecem], Toulouse, Haifa…. Read more →
Girl With Death Mask
Joshua Tree National Park, Twentynine Palms, California She pictures the boulder they call skull, then her eyes close. That grotesque head calls out from the wonderland of rocks.It calls out from twisting granite monoliths and other stones as sharp as bone shards; from lost palms long gracinga salt-white oasis; from dust hills colored almond and ochre by a rush of sun; from… Read more →
Nipping Out to Get Snacks
Get in he says crawling along the sidewalk in his pickup. I’ll take you anywhere you want. I smile. I’m happy to walk. He rams his fist into the passenger seat. I glance back at the motel, my girlfriend and daughter reading stories about princesses who save themselves. The chrome handle glints in the sun, a warped mirror in which… Read more →
What On Earth
Snow’s deep, blank pages ruled by trunk shadow lines longing for words. Scribes … Read more →
Roots & Wings
When the finches land, time stops. Rose-feathered faces, sun- flower seeds too big Biting off more than you can chew is different with a beak that can crack a hard outer shell But the joy of splitting open berries, scavenging their soft insides, leaving skins behind— One of their white-streaked bellies is bulbous, surely ready to lay her eggs any… Read more →
The Order of Things
They are harm less, gentle giant docile long eye lashes gentle gentle… And yet: They consume. We pretend ours less GROTESQUE Even for them, we paint pretty pictures— long necks, spotted patterns caged contained categorized taxonomized in neat little boxes safe, known and then: How strange to learn their consumption of bones (a necessary enrichment, mind— instinct, a body knowing… Read more →