- Choke
Over text, an old friend tells me he’s learned how to “choke a bitch” since we were last in bed.
I was drinking bourbon and ginger, much like I am now, thinking about his particular phrasing, remembering how timid …
Essay
In Love You Learned
How to break a book at the spine, how to rip out the pages without tearing them, how to cut them into
origami squares & how to crease the paper just right. How to fold a bunny, how to fold …
Leavenworth
We’d go skating on Friday nights. Crawl from the backseat of a Trans-Am or a busted Volvo wagon. It didn’t matter how we got there, just that we did. We’d walk down Metropolitan Street, past the prison, acting tough, hoping …
i become a mind reader
at recess, before a throng of candy-blooded classmates. i put on a fruit loop necklace & clap purple chalk on my palms & mumble “abracadabra” to fashion the illusion.
it’s all smoke & mirrors, of course. the real trick is …
A Missed Prayer
I had never attended Eid at a mosque before. Never knelt to bow my face to the earth for salah or prayer. I could hardly recite al-Fatiha, the opening and most principal verse of the Quran. I’d only ever …
Tradición
A breeze. The sun sat high enough to burn my skin, but sitting under the thick branches and leaves of my grandpa’s orange tree protected me. A shade thick enough to withstand the glare of the sun. If I closed …
Trans Icons from the Farm
I’m all read up on Frans de Waal and Temple Grandin, long since well-convinced of animal consciousness. Herein I contend their ontologies too are more complicated than we give due for. Nature simplifies, yes, but does not flatten.
Out on …
The Days Have Shed Their Names, March 27th, 2020
I’m here, there, shuffling from the living room to the kitchen.
What’s a living room? We do our living here? Ok, fine. Let’s say we do. My slippers scuff, scuff, scuff because I don’t bother with shoes too much now. …
Children of the Stones
“‘Children of the Stones,’ that’s what they called us.” I am sitting with one of the children of the first Palestinian Intifada. Now he is a man with some grey hair on the sides of his head.
Back in 1987, …
This Time
From The Integrator, 1968.
I picture Baldwin Hills, Los Angeles, through the stories my mom’s told me. Wealthy and multiracial, with black and white and Chinese families living together. An uneasy harmony in 1968. My mom took me to …
