In the narrow space between the side edge
of the granite bathroom vanity and the wall,
a speck of a red spider built a tight web
that trapped no more, it seemed to me,
than puffs of talc, soap bubbles, moustache
hair. Catching sense of my looming shadow,
it would tuck itself into the gap. We co-existed
thus, for days, and eviction never crossed
my mind. The morning after a weekend away,
I saw, in its place, a web vaster and more flaccid,
hosting a gray spider, many times the size
of my unobtrusive and likely digested friend.
Catching wind of me, the new squatter tried
to wedge itself in the corner by the back wall
away from the conspicuous web but its rear
rear abdomen and trailing legs stuck up, flailed
and wouldn’t fit. …
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In the early 1990s on a frosty winter’s weekend, I attended an international school job fair at Queen’s University. I had only been teaching in Canada for a few years, but there had been a freeze on salary for teachers in the Province of Ontario. I had taken loans to return to university to complete my Honours Bachelor of English & Drama degree. Due to the pay freeze, I wondered how many years it would take me to pay off those loans, that seemed to hang over my head like the Sword of Damocles. I drove from London Ontario, where I was living and working, to Kingston, and the attractive Queen’s University campus. I was nervous and excited at one and the same time at the prospect of possibly being hired to teach at an international school.…
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Rita reminded Irving of the female leads in the after-school movies he had watched fifteen years before at his babysitter’s house (Rebecca: she was on the high school track team, her mother owned a travel agency, and her father lived in Montana). However, unlike most of those characters, Rita showed no interest in remaking herself—Irving had the satisfied sense that she would not be exchanging her thick glasses for contacts, amplifying her straight, shoulder-length hair into unnatural heights, throwing out her jeans and T-shirts and replacing them with mini-skirts and an inconsistent array of jackets and halter-tops, not in any scenario he could predict, at any rate.
They met in their last semester at college, in a seminar class about autobiography. He was taking the class because it was the last English literature seminar that was available, and he needed one to fulfill his graduation requirements.…
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It was long after school ended and most people had gone home. Only the volleyball players were left running drills in the gym and a few of us sitting around campus waiting for our rides to come. I dozed on a stone bench by the pickup curb listening to whatever came out of the gym door. the squeaks of sneaker. The smacks of serves, saves, spikes and returns. And, of course, the thuds of defeat.
Then, as if manifesting herself from an amalgamation of these sounds, she startled me from my sleep.
“Are you free tomorrow afternoon?”
At first, I ignored her, thinking her words were meant for someone else. Even though I recognized her voice, we had hardly spoken to each other.
We were in the same grade in high school and had gone to the same schools since elementary.…
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after years with an iphone I got an android
I knew there would be challenges but now
I can’t even like a text message–
a nuance of correspondence gone
however
I am learning a new language
– you realize that’s what operating systems are, right?
they’re the way the brain of the device communicates
so
I’m learning a new language
and I am learning how to translate the actions of my fingers
and consequently my thoughts
so I can continue to communicate with the outside world…
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I’m scared. Baba has me pinned to the ground. I can feel his knee pressing on my spine just below my neck. The bristly mat upon the floor scratches my cheek. Sobs shudder through my body, yet the sounds I release are muffled by the gag in my mouth. Ama and Nana’s hands are busy banging on the ceremonial drums. The sound quakes through the floor, vibrating through my body, until I am not even sure if my heart has stopped or not.
Mama stands to one side. I can barely see her. But I know that as always, her head is hung. “It is time, Izma. You are seventeen, now. We are going to carve your oath upon your back,” she whispers. “It is for your eizzat.”…
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I take deep breaths, regulating my heartbeat after my child has a tantrum. I can stay calm until naptime when I will sit down to write or curl up to read. The ceiling has water damage, despite three roofers failing to find a leak. Miller Moths keep appearing in the bathroom, taking a break from their annual migration just to swoop at my face. When I write, I often focus on moments of wonder and discovery, but in the chaos of these days when my toddler barely sleeps and the house feels littered with unfortunate surprises, my dark side craves a scotch and about six hours alone. I dream of writing. I dreamed of this child. While balancing the two, my collection of Shirley Jackson books calls to me from the shelf in my workspace.…
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