Black Friday
12:39 a.m. The next thing I know, I’m moving up in line again. First, police carted off a pair of drunken troublemakers, and now paramedics haul away a woman whose face has turned blue. Everyone behind me, anonymous silhouettes of layered flannel and wool hats, moves up, too. “What luck!” a woman says, practically tucking…
Read MoreSuper Summer Spectacular
On the morning of July 16, 1970, I sat by my parents’ swimming pool in Santa Monica and wondered whether to go to the beach or take my last final. The test was open-book, anytime, anywhere, because Richard Nixon had invaded Cambodia and caused at least two hundred of my Columbia Law School classmates to strike…
Read MoreAn Interview with Ira Sukrungruang, Author of “The Melting Season”
Ira Sukrungruang is a memoirist, poet, and the coeditor of two anthologies. He is the recipient of the 2015 American Book Award as well as several prestigious writing fellowships. His work has appeared in Post Road, The Sun, and Creative Nonfiction, among others. He is one of the founding editors of Sweet: A Literary Confection,…
Read MoreTwo Poems
Last Letter for Carl Twenty years ago he sent it from prison, a pleaI ignored. Today the paper wrinkles around the edgesof my fingers as I re-read. Steady as everhe believed every word he wrote. I ignore the paper wrinkling around the edgeas my daughter’s lips wrap my nipple.I want to believe the words he…
Read MoreMoon Snail, Sea Potato, Lobster
A moon snail, facing imminent attack, slides its slimy foot over its shell, thwarting the likely predator, a starfish, which now cannot manage a sufficient grip over the slippery surface to pry open the intended prey. Thus is the moon snail saved. Julia was drawn to biology by its array of strangely comforting facts, though…
Read MoreTwo Poems
still life with prosecco and television Distracted by the lightof the half dozen moons around you I did not immediately noticethe woman you were eating, her smooth ears disappearing, her shoulders, belly, her soberknees. Something happened, then something else, and thenI was dumb and in love like it was my job. In the first act,…
Read MoreHow To Remember Your Dead Father
I first met my father when he was born the oldest child to two alcoholics. Both of whom would leave him. His father left the family for a woman with a southern drawl; and his mother would disappear for days leaving my father to care for his two sisters. He would feed them, clothe them,…
Read MoreTwo Poems
In a Second-Story Apartment in a Small, Midwestern Town, You Lament Summertime was sturdyas a stem. As the tipof a dandelion at the startof a storm. In Nebraska the basementssmell like tornadoes. Like uniformsfor a high schoolmarching band that no one could afford. Like abake sale. I’m trying to graspmy hands around October. I’m tryingto…
Read MoreEva and Dean
Eva had a habit of falling in love with men she couldn’t have. Her current infatuation was with an actor named Dean Richards, who materialized on our television one evening and refused to go away. Eva bought all his films, and began analyzing him the way she had once analyzed a dead raven that had…
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