Prose, Poetry, and Art since 1956
My brother and I came upon a shrine in Okinawa where miko still make kuchikamizake. Here—sipping rice wines fermented in the cheeks of virgins, is the closest I’ve ever come to intimacy. I want to cleanse myself with holy liquid, bind our futures with Shinto vows. Home never smelled like matured cherry blossoms or crisp oolong. Adorned with azusayumi and armed with tamagushi, miko are…
One year earlier they had been rushing toward a break. She had gone so far as to complicate things by hiring a lawyer. But things had calmed and the last three months had been focused on what was to come. They headed out that morning intoxicated with the sense that their lives might have somehow uncomplicated themselves and would now roll out seamlessly till old…
At first, I hide the zigzag. I feel that people will misunderstand. I wear my mother’s enormous sweaters, the long-necked ones, and I keep my sleeves unrolled so that my wrists are lost in the cable-knit vastness. I don’t raise my hand in class and receive no unsolicited questions. I keep to myself, and I eat lunch alone. Only at night do I admire it….
I. Mendocino headlands, 6:20 a.m. Muffled grey skies, finger-chilling breeze, salinity infusing nostrils and eyes. The rhythmic whoosh and sigh of waves engulfing, abandoning, then reclaiming landfall with the fervency of ambivalent lovers. We have one hour before the minus tide recovers a sister-world of beings left gasping in dry oxygen. My girlfriend Terry leads the way along gravelly path, nimbly stepping alongside scruffy cliff sides….
Aubade from Voyager 1 Houston i am grazing inside the deep field only with the telescopes will you observe my lilting all i hear for now are symphonies the stars and tiny sonatas so in a few ways i am Kepler in a few ways i…