One Sunday morning in May, my mother telephoned and asked me to attend Mass with her. I was busy packing my books and deciding which ones to leave for my nephew Sam and his sisters, and I had fourteen papers on Theme in The Great Gatsby to read and mark by the end of the day. I didn’t want to go to church. But the Mass was being said in memory of Papa Vincent, my grandfather, dead these twenty years, and members of his family would be expected to bear the gifts—the little carafes of water and wine and the loot from the collections—to the altar during the Offertory Procession. My father, the sweetest soul I knew, was feeling under the weather, and my brother, a believer, was out of town.…
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Outside the wide front windows, rain is washing
the field of concrete with sheets of
water, the cars sitting like obedient puppies
as grime falls away from their coats
Outside the windows, laughing people scurry
under any overhang to keep dry and
pull back their children who strain to slap the soles
of their feet -and the soul of
their hearts- against the shining surface of
gathering puddles
Outside the windows, two men sit where they
found refuge for smokers under the
window overhang, a tin can as ashtray balanced
on the bench between them,
the profile of the elder showing him speak as
the younger reaches a hand to touch
the frail man’s shoulder.
Inside the windows, the air has turned the shade
found at the mouth of a cave, shadows
in far corners, growing darker deeper inside the
usually bright bar.…
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I only found out on my tenth birthday that I had to wait three more years to be a teenager. Up to the age of nine years, 365 days, 23 hours, 59 minutes and 59 seconds (it was a leap year the year I turned ten) I thought teen just meant double digits. But apparently they set up a system where some of the double digit numbers had the suffix -teen in their names, and ten, eleven, and twelve were not them, and you had to have the suffix –teen in your age to be an actual teenager.
I can still hear my infuriating older brother George informing me of this at 12:01 a.m. on the very morning I turned ten. Maybe 12:05.…
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the streets are slick with Fidel Castro’s ambition. Tears and blood flow through the pipes underneath and remain collected in the large clay jars planted in front of my family’s former homes. Red, white, and blue patriotism may be a reason for execution if arranged improperly on the flag. America still restricts travel to the island, where my father is unrecognizable as a citizen of the United States. The streetlights cease even to flicker above crumbling roads that were once a path through the Pearl of the Antilles. Graying yellow and teal buildings surrender themselves to relentless winds that whip up from the sugarcane fields to reveal only an overpowering flavor of salt instead. The city brings memories too painful to explore into the hearts of my abuelos; it is a reminder that the grass was greener and the ocean more inviting.…
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We do our best to escape
the shadow of the wreath.
Nothin’ but a losin’ battle.
Our hearts we dye in grey,
with fate we stain and streak.
Colors of imbalance.
Death is a lengthy day
that all will fully know.
The end will come before
or after
in the moon or through the sea.
We do our best to escape
the shadow of the wreath.
– Lance Mazmanian
Author’s Note: This poem was written with a nod toward the October 1987 song “History Will Teach Us Nothing” by Sting (aka Gordon Sumner). No real relation apart from rhythm.…
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Earlier
Monday is fine to get a new job. To start over. Each day he filled applications. Life could be worse. He had somewhere to stay, it had a big view. Twenty-third floor, sweet view of the city. The business zones and tourist gyps, pocket-sized.
Warm for September, strength in the hazy sun. Crafting statements of suitability and refreshing his resume, he gazed between multiplied windows, across rail yards of long, grey wagons, to where the city burst like an emergency through the flat land. On the twenty-third floor, among gliding gulls.
Between the towers and the city, a fortified, rectangular block intrigued him. Too squat and fierce for apartments, a slab of layered windows and fussy turrets. A prison, floating alone on bare real estate.…
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He’ll be back soon; he never takes long.
I sit on the rough wooden floor, dirt and pine needles sticking to my yellow smock as the firelight dwindles. I’m supposed to be adding wood, feeding it like Mr. John does, but the ache in my body stalls my progress. The single-room cabin is cluttered with cans, rusty animal traps and furs. Centering the room is a small wooden table that is heaped with dirty tin plates and Mr. John’s carving projects.
My rear is sticky and wet; I should clean up the blood. I should wash the dishes. Mr. John would tell me there’s no use sitting around, there’s work to be done and I’ve been abed too long. I have been watching the crack of light beneath the door – the only window to the outside we have.…
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