Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash
WELLSPRING, DAWN
“Untitled I” & “A Poet’s Slow Return Through a Cento”
Untitled I After Phil Kaye’s “Canyon” I lost contact with my obaachanfor a while. My tongue got tangledfrom gibberish versions of overhearingmom’s phone calls with her sisters and theEnglish alphabet as the sonics of kanjislipped slowly out of me, left mespeaking in haiku. I begged momto reteach me her first language but was pushedback into a white classroom with Odysseusand vocabulary lessons while the school’sspeech…
Feed the Machine: An Interview with Benjamin Kessler
Benjamin Kessler’s novella The Pinnacle is set in a near-future version of New York City thatfeels uncomfortably close to our present moment. In it, our unnamed narrator spends weeklongshifts in The Pinnacle, the world’s tallest building—though the purpose of the building, and evenits construction, remain unclear. Is it an engineering marvel or the world’s largest Ponzischeme? Behind the building is the equally-mysterious Robison-Moon corporation, a…
The Bar Where We Met Is Closing
forever which means we are the ghostsI always knew we were.What haunts me is that I am certainthat everything that has ever happenedthat everything that will ever happenis happening right now. When I order a drink, I am being named.When you slip me your number, I am carrying your ashesin my purse through the streets of Rome.To preserve the body of an animal you lovefirst…
This is The Poem I Always Wanted to Write
This is the poem I always wanted to writeAbout trees and precipices and the PacificCoast in the state of Oregon, about momWho loved dad who passed away when itWas too early to know what fatherhood is,About how the individual doesn’t exist,Luis, whoever he is, you, whoever you are,It would be easier to dream our faces away This is the poem I always wanted to writeAbout…