Puzzle Pieces
When I’m done, I take the elevator down. This gray morning feels like late afternoon. On the second floor, the man who walks like I once walked—two months ago—steps into the elevator, and exclaims, Good timing! Was he at physical therapy? I ask this. He was. A ding announces our destination. He steps out, is…
Read MorePaterson
Not just the spray lifting from the brink of the Great Falls, butthe busted, blood-red of brake lights in vacant lots,the pennies circling the bottom of a hungry man’s cup,fire escapes, hose-watered sidewalks, the bars of storefront gatesrising at nine, the barbed wire spirals of the cellblockson Grand, iron bars guarding apartment windows,slanted street lamps,…
Read MoreAn Interview with Sonja Livingston, Author of “Queen of the Fall”
Sonja Livingston is an award-winning memoirist whose work has appeared in countless literary journals and several textbooks on writing. Her newest book, Queen of the Fall: A Memoir of Girls and Goddesses, is a collection of lush vignettes that explores, through her own experiences and the lives of others, what it means to be a woman…
Read MoreRaro
Me dejaste con el corazón en la mano! I hadn’t heard my mother’s voice in half a year. I wanted to say I forgot or lost track of something but that would have been too honest. I said instead that I had been busy, been good, been behaved, all of it in my best Spanish, which…
Read MoreYou’re Going to See Some Blood
Because he said on the phone that he was homeless, I expected Mark Grodi to be a little rough around the edges; I did not expect him to walk into the newsroom with a gas can in his hand. The whole thing had started 45 minutes earlier with my phone clattering on my desk, which…
Read MoreSelected Figures
Two Poems
Dictionary of the Atmosphere Cumulus: Continued upward growth suggests showers later in the day. Evaporation: Liquid to vapor. Lift up, fall down, lift up. Again. Fear: There is the place where I saw the Mountain Lion. It was a spring day full of iris. My father never believed me. He insisted it was a bobcat.…
Read MoreTwo Poems
My Father Recites a Story in Low Voice: This true story. Like many story happenedon caravan through desert. Do you knowI had revelation in An-Nafudon way for Hajj in Mecca? It is true.An angel came to me in double-helixof sand to give me story. It is written,you know? All written. Each of us has story.Your…
Read MoreThe Body’s Defenses Against Itself
The back of the woman’s neck is already sweaty. Liquid pools in the dark creases behind her ears and around the collar of her over-sized T-shirt. She has worn loose sweatpants, the cotton kind, and thick white socks to class. She stands at the back of her mat, scratching one ankle with a big toe,…
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