The Los Angeles apartment was tropical, with grapefruits hanging heavy off the trees that lined our street and fat lemons that spilled into the gutter, sometimes hitting car hoods in the night on their way down and making the alarms go off. From our unit we had a clean view of the San Gabriels. There was a koi pond out front—with no koi, but still….
Stance
The cell divided can eventually stand. Does anyone want a complete person beside them. Can anyone accept a magnitude. The exponent approaches platform. Does a deadlift. Bench press. Gavel gazing, up and down attention. Some people are eating something as others lick their teeth. Head first, stomach later. Trust science more than the scientist. The hands of people sweat. Yes, as you travel up my…
Remains
What I’d like is to tell you the redemption story. The same shine as balloons: a remnant of white in the sullen pupils of the dead-in-life, and how those dead may be made new, if they’ll fix a gaze long enough on just about anything the wind chooses to play with. A bonus for dusk, a grove of palmettos, or her flyaway hairs. In the…
Untitled, Athens, 2012
Ranbir Singh Sidhu is the author of Good Indian Girls and a winner of the Pushcart Prize in fiction. His stories and essays appear in Conjunctions, Salon, The Georgia Review, The Literary Review, and other journals. These are his first published photographs.
What Happens At Home Since I’ve Gone Away
I learn fast that there are rules in the underworld. If you want to get by, you have to work their system.’ Don’t eat anything, not even a seed. Don’t let one of them touch you, the damned with their eyes big as serving dishes. They’ll follow you around, sniffing your hair, which doesn’t smell like death, a not-smell they haven’t smelled before; you’ll go…