Prose, Poetry, and Art since 1956
The kippah clipped to my hairnags like a tag. I don’t come to daven or lean into the ligature of lamedlike a shepherd’s crook,or wrap myself in the birthday-cake blue and white of communal tallit. I don’t come for the finale,either, the last Oseh Shalom,just to say I showed up,shook hands with the Sabbath bride. I come for the faces. En-face or three-quarter profilesof heads, some balding…
Never odd or even, we bear the saint’s confession given over daily as scars mating, we grow in freedom from sin when the music stops, a number he chooses from the cakewalk of us broken boy rhymes in steps fall to take and to be taken by him, to watch the other boys in hostility at the square dance of our relations, our Hialeah fathers…
Her skin seeps like soup.It’s not a perfect Revlon match,Oils jumping toward the waiterFor a glass of water and the entréeHasn’t even arrived to save her.Do you remember your mum’sFirst sweat at fifty, like a tableclothWas being ripped from her shouldersAnd she could not scream,And she was stiller than a smokingChimney? The secret betweenMothers and daughters is thatWe are the same in too many ways,No…
Job description: Individual needed for adult baby-themed store where clients can purchase adult-sized diapers, bibs, pacifiers, and other products, as well as purchase special-themed events. Duties include, but are not limited to, feeding, burping, playing with adult-aged clients. Hourly rate + bonus. Management reserves the right to make changes as needed without prior notice. Employees will not be asked to perform duties of a sexual…
Every morning, before the sun or just after the sun has come depending on the season, I sip my coffee and watch the men push the cart. They are going uphill in a hurry, up to The Crossing, which they will not cross. Later, once I’ve gone to the office, returned home, prepared my evening soup, and am again sitting at the window, I will…