Maru Mori*To rise from bed on legs still working,to feed the cats before making coffee,and open the door to the dark back porchwithout fear of falling or a lurking predator.To bend and lift a heavy pot to the stoveand choose to cook or not, easy in the waysof browning and braising, slicing onions,eyeballing spices. To... Continue Reading →
Memory, like a poem, is a made thing.A mixtape of summers past. BlurredPolaroids pinned to a corkboard.Re-captioned in different ink.My wicker nightstand time-capsulesa long ago self: shiny-handled pocketcomb, cherry lip smacker, mood ring.A knotted band—faded and frayed.Gianna and I braided friendshipbracelets and tied them on each other.Wrists thick with candy-colored zig zags.We wore them until... Continue Reading →
In the stone cathedral, I am offered salvation—a paper-thin promise skims my sinner’s tongue. A tiny bud—blue and wanting.I cross myself in practiced devotion.A paper-thin promise skims my sinner’s tongue.I tilt toward the prismed rose window. I cross myself in practiced devotion. Ask the ground for what I need.I tilt toward the prismed rose window,my... Continue Reading →
I remember what my grandmother has long forgotten. She was an integral part of my childhood, yet she doesn’t recognize my name. Details of her own upbringing she recalls perfectly—that she grew up on a cattle farm in Wyoming and used to fall asleep on the porch gazing at
Mortal and unbaptized in open soilwedded with leathered creosote, cactus wrens,an abandoned microwave, grotty folding chairs,and a wooden headboard half-buried in the sand,I laid down beneath the sun, bright and meanas a hungry skull, searing both the sky and my skininto a mustard color wheel. I stayed. At first,I found familiar things of hope like... Continue Reading →
By 6 pm, the Ramirez boys had already secured a record candy haul—much better than last year. And they had yet to walk the Turnberry subdivision, where the houses sported three-car garages and the rooflines rose to towering peaks. As he followed his parents onto Turnberry Lane, Lucas Ramirez, age eight and three-quarters, recurrently glanced... Continue Reading →
One of my very first memories was of the back of our family’s couch, a worn corduroy with dull green buttons spaced along the front of each cushion, resting on a delicately carved set of claw feet. It held the same place in our family room, as steadfast and predictable as a statue, a few... Continue Reading →
As a girl growing up on a farm in Edson, Michigan, I knew about sex from an early age. With breeding animals around, it’s something you learn, something as common as wind bending wheat on a summer’s day. And still, I was naïve. I’d seen plenty of genitalia, even watched my...
about this piece They Were Not Alone2024 See More in Art...
By Jonathan UkahSeptember 22, 2024 We walk down the streetwith joined hands, twined hearts,staring at the darknessengulfing the closed shutters,shoppers trooping out of shops,mothers shouting at playful children,tugging at husbands’ arms;father’s watching the birds perchon grey roofs with shadowy chimneys,watching girls chatting at the edge of the streets,eyes at the gap between now and tomorrow,listening... Continue Reading →
