I’ve studied Shakespeare and read Hemingway. I’ve marveled at Poe and Hawthorne, Pynchon and Roth, Murakami and King, too. Philip Levine taught me the simple truth, and Pablo Neruda showed me love and despair. Rabindranath Tagore breathed light into my body, and Juan Felipe Herrera turned me on my cabeza. Bukowski? He just punched me... Continue Reading →
Fuck. Pardon my French. But fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. FUCK.Oh, it could have been worse: I could have neglected to make an appointmentin advance and wound up in a line snaking outside the door, around thebuilding; I could have flunked the written test more than once. Grâce à Dieu,my partners in this morning’s menage à trois... Continue Reading →
How do you want to be remembered by your students? And, moreimportantly, when?For your awards or accolades and only at the end?In some big ceremony, retirement, or a funeral attended by many,Which of those ways do I want to be remembered by my students? Not any.I want to be remembered during certain times by those... Continue Reading →
I used to remember.The way the trees below meant nothing to Orion.I used to think.I wonder if he huntsin Greensboro. Where pines cover grass which covercivil disobedience kept as tight asorion to mrigathe deer in the sky.forever disagreeingforever at war. Read More in Poetry
Where’d you learn to bend time like that?You found the portal on instinct.Our two mouths like black holes connecting,Lips and teeth and tongue markingThe fissure where solid time turns liquid,Where night stretchesIn communion with parked cars,Where street dogs gather their feast,Where we gather our longingAnd pass it back and forth,Like the best ball game ever... Continue Reading →
ar • dent /ˈɑːdənt/ adj. 1. The feeling of blood racing rapidly through the veins. 2. The ache of the heart after cruel, raw rejection. 3. All that is evoked when the human soul is moved / The hidden tear behind a father who cannot feed the five little heads clinging to his legs /... Continue Reading →
1.I remember the promise of the mountains, the alpine summer breeze clearingour pores, the entranced look you gave me on Highway 14Remember the chip factory next to the hotel? That’s where you would’vetransferred You said all I needed to do was find a job2.I remember our first lunch, spaghetti and meatballs There was somethingpassed in... Continue Reading →
I’d read once that Salinas, the surname that graces every form of my identity,was born in the salt mines of old Spain, where many men surely perished. Myuncle Henry, though I’d call him tio, was a Salinas if there ever was one, thesalt so strong in his blood, you could almost taste it when the... Continue Reading →
Please take a stand for your red, white, and blue. Take a stand for the land ofthe greatest, land of the honest, land of the cherished liberty. Freedom for alland above all. Freedom for my sisters and brothers. Freedom to write on thispaper and freedom to stand outside the beloved White House, chanting withsigns in... Continue Reading →
She told me that she, too, had a gardenHere, in the city, and asked if I would like to see it?“Yes, where is it?,” I asked, confused.“In Defiance,” she answered,taking my hand, as I followed.She pointed out a little tuft of grass in the crack of an asphalt parking lot.Next, she showed me a strawberry plant growing between... Continue Reading →
