Prose, Poetry, and Art since 1956
I. In the dust and the dirtof the orchard floor, there wasa beautiful red beetle — and it did not move. Amid a little world’s scatterand frenzy, here was something — a word for silentcomes to mind: unmoving. A letteruninflected. Not a breath,no release: just a consonant— still. He dug a finger into the dust andpushed the little red beetle in.A brush…
Photo by Leandra Rieger on Unsplash
Dressed in a medical gown, I sit in an uncomfortable plastic chair behind a foldable cloth and metal partition. I stare at the stains on the partition, trying not to imagine their origins. A blonde man in a bright red shirt decorated with blue leaves towers over me, needle poised. He complains about my tiny veins. He removes his gloves with exaggerated flourish, deeply sighing…
in the days of your disappearance, the pink dogwoodblushes through my window. while the trees lean toward a whisper beyond the gleam of marbled glass, i hear yourise along the garden, suspended in the air between a skyless plight and nimbus. blame drizzles in this housewith an instinctual reminder: it’s been weeks now since you came around and i wonder about your frame, wonderhow solitude…
It’s fall in the garden and the leaves on the basil freckle with black.I am thinking of the signs of my father dying. It’s easy enough to see in my plants; the cilantro, albeit cold-clever, eventuallyblossoms with seed one crisp January morning. Its leaves, like a diseased heart, grow smaller and smaller, duller and dulleruntil it can do nothing but shove the white flowers, tiny…