The cat crouched in
the corner of the tent hissing, drawing in its scent if it could. She stared
fixedly at Abdullah while he painted the final card. He lifted it up and waved it
in the air to dry.
Nardil nearly
snatched the card from Abdullah’s hand, while gathering up the rest of the set.
The boy raced toward the flap, clutching them tightly in his fist. He turned
once to look at the artist and was gone.
Nardil ran through
the coming dust storm toward the Mamluk General’s luxurious tent. He was proud
to have the task of presenting the tarot to the great man. He high-stepped even
though his scrawny legs were getting caught up in his tattered clothes.
Safiya, his younger
sister, crouched outside the artist’s tent, waiting for him.…
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Sitting still, waiting to descend
just a layer of fogged glass
keeping me from you.
Trees growing on your cheeks,
chin in your palm.
You’re frightened, I know.
Yet the sun splays on the dashboard and
you see the moose, as I do, swimming
in the pond—black berries along its shore.
Soon, the plane kisses the ground.
Something has left you.
– Preston Eagan…
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The Troll on the Bridge
I have been singing the same song in my head for twenty minutes now. It’s not that it’s my favorite song or that I don’t know lyrics to any others. I don’t know why I feel so compelled to sing it, but I do know that it was three minutes and seven seconds long and that its title was five words long. I also knew that if I picked up a rock to examine it, I would have to start the chorus over again because I would be too perplexed on which way the rock should sit to think about the words. North, south, left, or right, either way it wasn’t how it should be situated and….shit. It’s the troll again. …
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I remember which way to go if I can face north
& close my eyes: at home, the Tillmans’ house
was north & stood in for the small dipper, somewhere
below the treeline. East was the city, too small
to light the sky orange or at all, the searchlights
from the airport probing nervously a clouded night,
saying please come home, so good to see you. West
was the back yard, over which my father launched
crude bottle rockets on summer nights, the best ones
making it to the cornfield past the property-line,
& we imagined them arcing over the barn, too,
burying their spent heads in the woods beyond.…
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Once upon a time,
there were three little pigs. Each of the pigs feared the big bad wolf that
would terrorize them by crossing the border from where he lived to where they
lived. To protect themselves, the three little pigs formed a committee and paid
for a focus group to provide politically correct solutions to their problem
about the undocumented wolf.
The first focus group
advocated for giving the wolf whatever he wanted because it was not fair that
the pigs had so much and the wolf had nothing. The first little pig asked, “Why
should I give the wolf everything I worked so hard for, all my life, to
acquire?” The head of the focus group denounced the first little pig as a
racist and a speaker of “hate speech”.…
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I knew from the moment my unholy foot crossed its raised threshold, that Theatre Hall was tormented by something surreal, something unnatural. How I surmised this, so quickly, and yet so certainly, I cannot be sure. It was as clear to me as the Proscenium stage, lit up by a dozen or so overhead spotlights.
Something
lingered here, something dead and hollowed out. It did not feel malevolent to
me, not vengeful or violent. I was only aware of the overwhelming pressure of
hopelessness, of long, insurmountable despair.
My
drama professor stood at the front of the room, prattling on about the history of
the building, pointing out its architectural subtleties. He spoke with all the
enthusiasm of someone impassioned by personal interest. Still, I couldn’t bring
myself to invest in the lecture, couldn’t curtail the sinking ache that seemed
to have imbedded itself into my chest wall.…
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Tomorrow, when the Vulcan god of fire,
Rejects their offerings, she will burn with the rest of the city.
Tomorrow, when the wrath of gods pour into landfills and
The river boils, she will not get far on foot.
Tomorrow,
when the walls are breaking and
the air is sour with naked fear,
she will be one of a thousand deaths, slaughtered
under the mass of ash and pumice.
But today, she is alive and with her mother in the markets,
Clutching a stout baby. The sun is shining and they are shopping for the evening meal.
Pausing at the flower stand between the vendors of fishhooks
And cloth, the flower she lifts to her nose smelled sweeter than usual.
– Sarah Huang…
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