Prose, Poetry, and Art since 1956
the three of us turn right. Past the iron fence wrapped in raspberry, thick with bee song and morning glory’s violet, the tree’s jaw and its opera throat hitting all the right notes. Past the in-between, the alley with its arched back and vine-covered belly, full of ivy and other tender wrappings. Until, yes— there. The brick house and its moss steps, its spires a…
My mother calls herself our trash heap. She eats what we won’t, grows plump on our leftover eggs, bread crusts, the bitter-hearted lotus seeds we cannot stomach. We have small appetites. Waiting for us is eating, cutting slice after slice of pumpkin bread until all the bowls are clean. No one wants to be garbage, she says, but look what I do for you. In…
A rodman at the far end. A transitman behind. She has them where she wants them, too far apart for brainless prattle, the joking at her expense. She works her way forward, toward the red and white target above the plumb bob. This branch, that twig, she commands her machete like a surgeon. Pausing halfway between here and there, she embraces the close air, the…
Spell for Burning Gender with a line from Elizabeth Bishop Call on the moon: illuminate! For night recalls the ache of barely kindled flame and I the sweat in which our bodies met— the dance untimed and breath like antlers crowned our pleasant sacrifice. Eight limbs entwined as gender burned away, so what remained were iridescent skeletons expel -ling plumes of turquoise breath. Rebirth…
Dress Up The men in my family tell me American girls love American boys in the dark. I asked my grandfather how to dress. He wasn’t sure what “American boys” wore so he dressed me like my brother. Who wore only polo shirts and wanted to go to Yale. He left for New Haven as I crawled through the spice cabinet. I can almost smell…