Scuttling and Creeping Photo by Image Catalog Through the dark one-way mirror, I watched a group of toddlers shoving squishy foam cars along a rug, their faces grim with concentration. Another group was piled in and around the lap of a sturdy woman reading a picture book. And in back, on a wooden loft, a […]
My father will spin his life into a series of anecdotes and stage-friendly one-liners. It’s a magician’s trick. First comes a sudden sparkle in the periphery, an old pickpocket move, though he uses it to protect his own pockets. Over there, he’ll point, and in a wink you’ll laugh and look away.
Photo by Christian Zeiser i. Vesper Leaving you to poke around the craft stalls I orbit the solar system maze, wander the icicle forest, the replica Houston skyline, disco the Technicolor floor with toddlers and carol around the fifty-foot tree. Before Jesus, the one from Rio with open arms, I stop to pray. At the […]
Photograph by Tiago Veloso I was a child when I learned from my father that his parents were once the tango champions of Zamboanga. I had never met them, and only knew what they looked like from pictures taken of their fiftieth wedding anniversary that my aunt Nancy had sent us from the Philippines in […]
We’d like to take a moment to address the violence against Asian and Asian American communities that has been rampant over the past year and that has recently culminated in a shooting in Georgia on Tuesday, March 16th. Eight people, including six women of Asian descent, are dead: Delaina Ashley Yaun Gonzalez, 33; Xiaojie Tan, […]
Photo by jan go I drove Harry from LA to Michigan the same August that California burned down. California burned every year, of course, and had all my life. Fire was one of the only seasons we had. But it was getting worse in a way we could see and sprawling out over the calendar. […]
Photo by geir tønnessen This evening the sky above the horizon was a purple band but thin and unconvincing, like a bad belief and the ivy climbing the stone buildings was disconsolate and wouldn’t look at me. Disbelief can be astonishment or godlessness, depending and sometimes I feel good and sometimes there’s only a small […]
Photo by Paul Asman and Jill Lenoble Remember: headlamps, worn to move through total darkness. We hit the road too late, by the time we pulled into the parking lot, twilight, then even less than that. New Hampshire winter, days done early. I liked being in dusk with you. An arrow of lamplight let me […]
Photo by Phil Roeder when you lift your toe, the fabric falls, folds. the ropes dance. your hair drags along the forest floor and my comb follows. tonight, we’re lost at sea, hidden in plain sight. let’s not worry our wishes into birds or close off a corner of the room. let’s have a thicker […]
Photo by John Morton Outside, a tree, dried out & skeletal, moans. Dead in spring. The roots can’t find water. It’s May, the city isn’t greening anymore, & trees are sick of the sun. Say the sky’s the sickblue of hospital walls. Say her name as she coughs & gags in predawn heat. She tried […]