Father Pepe swept the volcanic ash off the sidewalk leading to his church. The narrow shoulders on his slight frame moved back and forth in rhythm as he worked his way down the walkway. A young man approaching middle age, Father Pepe appeared delicate but wiry.
The volcano had never erupted in an explosion of lava. Instead, it constantly belched out the ash that covered the town of Santa Clara and the fields of coffee plants nearby, like God emptied his ashtray over the land. Everyone in the village cleaned away volcanic ash from windowsills, cars, and walkways daily.
The coffee fields were the lynchpins of Santa Clara’s economy, and despite efforts to prevent it, the ash choked the plants. If the volcano did not cease its grey discharge soon, the coffee shrubs would all be dead, and so would Santa Clara.… ...continue reading
I hold my hands up to the sky & wait for lightning to strike me, after all I have been lying
awake at night, stitched into the side of your name like another bruise left on this body that cannot hold itself up any longer
than the night’s coldness in summer which is when I’m writing this as a way to escape the nightmares of you marrying him
in sacrilegious revenge to God’s humor which is to say my arrogance has left me faithless
in the process of healing
//
I looked to the world running wherever the wind would blow me, crashing down in a thunderclap leaving hollowed memories, ghosts I gave names to, associating them with scars I connect together like a map detailing where I’ve been — constellations to guide me towards the shore & out of the sea’s vast loneliness.… ...continue reading
There are so few people given us to love.
– Anne Enright
You may have heard that Vincent van Gogh sliced off his ear. It’s “common knowledge,” and it’s almost true —that is, it wasn’t the whole ear, and he didn’t give it to a prostitute either, (she was, actually, a housemaid at the brothel) but close enough. He did pass out from loss of blood and had to go to a hospital. And you may have heard he killed himself although, recently, there’s another story about that, but someone shot him in the stomach, and, of course, you know, that he was nuts.
Well, that, at least, is true enough.
But did you know that by the age of twenty-seven, van Gogh was done with finding work?… ...continue reading
I was inside the bathroom, balancing blood on the back of my hand when there was a knock on the door.
“Yeah?” I asked.
He mumbled something. I balled up a tissue and placed it on the cuts and it drank like a vampire bat.
“Everything okay?” I asked.
Another mumble.
“I can’t hear you, buddy. Speak up.”
The tissue clung to my skin, so I used my free hand to slide the razor blade from the counter, open the drawer and slip it into the slit of the small tin box meant to house such things. It clanked inside, landing on top of the others.
“Can I have some milk?” he asked.
“I turned your show on,” I said. “Why don’t you watch that?”
I plopped the blood-soaked tissue into the toilet.… ...continue reading
During the rains, the darkening rains,
I am floating above the flood,
waters beneath me, splashing my back.
The fish see my shoulder blades,
mistake them for wings
because I float in air. But I do not
fly. I travel on the water’s aura,
its color changing with my mood,
while the fish in crowded schools
complain about limited knowledge.
Oval clams stay tight, closed to my shape,
a silhouette against the darkening sky.
They speak in a fishy chorus, rub
scales against each other like blades.
Dark rain pelts my face, cold, stinging.
Black water at my back splashes warm,
inviting me in. But I hover above,
still without wings, stay in-between.
I do not swim or dive or fly.
I float. The only way I know to get by.… ...continue reading
“Do you remember the couple we met at the Lalonde wedding,” Ellen asked, picking up a four-jar gift pack – Tandoori, Balti, two other labels Jack couldn’t read from where he stood – and examining it. She had convinced him to celebrate Diwali this year in support of their daughter Megan’s betrothal to Aarush, a med student from Jaipur. The thought of it gave him heartburn, the food, the possibility of meeting Aarush’s parents and celebrating a Hindu religious festival, penance Ellen exacted for his attitude toward their nuptials. Not that he cared about their religion, or any religion really. But Megan was only twenty-one and finishing her bachelor’s in music therapy. Aarush still had to complete two years of interning.
Now here he was following her around the aisles at Penzey’s Spices.… ...continue reading
Our plans were made in the wake of disaster. We endured two hours on a 27-mile-stretch of stop-and-go roadblocks and hazard-flashing work crew trucks before reaching what we assumed was downtown Miami. The television aerials of chaotic devastation since the storm had been dramatic. But on the ground, the smells, the rotting food in the tropical September heat, the stench of decomposing carcasses of pets, backyard animals, and vegetation was overwhelming, not something film footage could capture.
We had driven eight hours total. The massive hurricane ravaged Miami two weeks prior and four of us, a professor, a realtor, an engineer, and me, a physician decided to volunteer with the cleanup. We had been close friends for twenty years. But now we were just church guys trying to help: Life is for service.… ...continue reading