I judge myself deeply, harshly – don’t allow courtesy given others, thoughtless tortured by tumultuous thoughts, ticking driving negativity nails through, aching begging, the merciless obsession eradicated, relentless screaming behind frozen stare, scared floods back like recoiling toes from cold water, endless forgiveness, permission – breathe and be, redemption when … Read more
I cannot muster effort enough to show what is and unspoken there what little deserves and overly qualifies a human to which I am particular. There is a body: made of sinews, contrasting with elasticity – his rubberband arms and legs cinnamon facades made for over-ambiguity – preserving a heart perpetual pumped this … Read more
A buck ninety-nine. If you pull up to the Window at 32nd and Rose And order something cheap but good With a tad more fat than you know you should Have but secretly crave, Make sure to tell them to make it a value meal, And they’ll wrap her in whole wheat lace And stick … Read more
1 It was summer. I was sweeping in the kitchen, facing south. There was that milling around feeling, children everywhere, my own and some others — that white-haired child from down the road. Hear the sound of hammering, one, two, three, pause, one, two, three — a husband somewhere, working. There is no … Read more
When I was a kid my parents moved a lot, but I always found them. They would carry on as if changing the locks was a game all parents played with their oldest child, to trick them into resiliency. They let my little sister have my bedroom one day while I was at school, to … Read more
in remembrance of Eun Kang What if it were just called Monday, not Night of Remembrance, not Ceremony or Candlelight Vigil? If this night was a night with nothing to take back? If women did not carry tea lights or pray under a canopy of bamboo? What if there … Read more
I need a camera, to my eye, to my eye, reminding which lies I’ve been hiding -Wilco, “Kamera” There is profuse proof of my existence after age 10. My photographic life begins awkward, barely pre-teen. Band concerts, summer camping, middle-school portraits of me with braces, family pets, all chronologically ordered into albums; a … Read more
At the observation station observers tried observing themselves making observations and were impressed by the results. A film loop of a loop of film being filmed in a loop. For scientific purposes, some said. For posterity said others, to preserve in our selves the making of ourselves, as seen in the making. Doesn't everyone … Read more
How to still the gills until they need to go how to go from the … Read more
The iron treadles rock and doven in the flatiron shadows, pressed air and piece work. Hungry hands move like birds. Every week the girl who makes the least gets fired. You march arm and arm with women from the factory, a banner draped across your chest and you sing. Farbende I used to call you—the … Read more
1. Our mother calls me to come and look at her. That is how we begin. “Say something,” she says. She tries to sound petulant, but her image in the full-length mirror makes her smile. “A sheath,” I offer, cross-legged on the floor. I hold a pillow on my lap despite the heat. Our mother … Read more
And it seemed that, just a little more—and the solution would be found, and then a new, beautiful life would begin; and it was clear to both of them that the end was still far off, and that the most complicated and difficult part was just beginning. Anton Chekhov The Lady with the Little Dog … Read more
I was right in the middle of a late-night rush in the deli when Jeffers, one of our regulars, came slamming in like a lion late for a feeding. Most of our regulars are a pain to be sure, but Jeffers is in his own category. He’s hairy all over with this crazy-looking, giant beard … Read more
“Are they real, Mommy?” My daughter was staring at my bare breasts one morning last month as I got dressed for work. The incisions from my double mastectomy were quiet now, having faded to a mildly aggravated pink over the past six years since my surgeries. “Well, baby, in a way,” I answered. “Remember when … Read more
July 2nd, 2008. Truth be told, I’ve never been much good at remembering what the date is. Of course this affliction is exacerbated in L.A., where the seasons are vague at best, and I’m hard pressed to know what month it is let alone one of its numbers. In fact, at 78 degrees and … Read more
When he wakes up and complains about your coffee,
just smile. Show no concern that it’s seven o’clock,
and he’s out the door, rushing toward
the nubile barista at Café Amor.
The sound of our footsteps echoed through the hall. Dozens of faces too ill to smile stared at us as we tried not to look into their rooms. Hushed conversations mingled with the odors of Lysol, bleach and fresh flowers. We arrived at our destination. My mother asked for my handkerchief to dry … Read more
It was those charged five minutes between 2nd and 3rd period when the courtyard of my junior high was suddenly thronged with twelve-, thirteen- and fourteen-year-olds of all shapes and sizes, all with backpacks dangling off their shoulders. Small groups began to form, halting traffic on the two narrow cement walkways that crisscrossed between the … Read more
I fear being like her and I am like her the critical part that wants to hurt the other render them helpless and needy no one measuring up, everything falling short like the woman on the news who bit the nose of the pitbull that attacked her retriever (really happened) I like to break skin, … Read more
Instead of thinking about Sonny, his traveling companion wishes she were in Spain. How far of a drive is it from Granada to Barcelona? Twenty miles south of Fresno a sign says Visalia 24 miles. Sonny pilots the car with dirty hands, a torn shirt, an unintentional beard, last … Read more
This is the sound of losing myself: the drips of continuous rain as it disperses itself along the wet ground, *** Where Costa Rican vines, like syringes, suck the water (tender roots like a child *** sucking upon a nipple, absorbing the minerals, the liquid of … Read more
Sheer striped-print curtains that hung from cheap white curtain rods blew softly in an April breeze. I remember that day well. Dad and I lay on our bellies, watching Vin Scully, the voice of the Dodgers baseball while eating from a tray of Ritz crackers and a jar of Skippy Peanut Butter on the bed … Read more
Sam sits by the window and watches the storm swirling in a white cloud of madness, like angry wasps swarming after unwilling prey. The chaos of it entrances her, the way it dances across the landscape with no sense or sequence or sanity, just the passion and purpose to paint the whole world white. The … Read more
For a boy to know his father he must travel upriver, far upriver—until the upping and the river become one, until the boy is the river and the father is no longer the source. Able and his father loved rivers, loved being near them, loved to talk about them, loved finding the beginnings of them, … Read more
I think rain is as necessary to the mind as to vegetation. My very thoughts become thirsty, and crave the moisture. – John Burroughs Autumn 2006 There is a day every fall when the air goes slack and my forehead throbs and I know that rain is on its way. I fret at the back … Read more
