Sylvie was barely six when her mother’s hand purposely blocked her face from seeing the horrendous sight of papa being taken away by the police. Through a narrow chink between her mother’s pinky and the ring finger, Sylvie’s questions poured out silently: Where was Papa going? Will he be back to take her for a swim? Mama spoke about it again and again in later years but nothing brought comfort to the question of why Papa was victimized by Stalin. Woolen gloves and eat-treats to Siberia brought no acknowledgement. Could they no longer communicate with Papa? Had he turned into a ghost?
If Sylvie had broken loose towards him would the police have allowed a last hug? Would Papa have said, “Little princess, I will be back for you.”…
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Right now, you’re in India teaching English.
Later, you won’t be.
Last week, he was just another student who didn’t know the difference between us and them and going and gone, until yesterday, when after everyone else left the room, he wrote a Telugu word on the blackboard and looked at you. He had never looked at you that way before. Like a still life with chalk dust in afternoon light. Like a blue flame. As if a swell of water could blush and bite its lip. You asked him what it meant. He said darling and stared past everything that wasn’t you.
Today he’s wearing a pink t-shirt that says, “Enjoy Pussy” in the Coca Cola font and black slacks with no shoes. He’s playing cricket on the hot dust of the school grounds.…
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In a morbid way he wished it were raining. It only seemed right that if he was mourning someone so beautiful, everything else breathing should too. The air, the earth, the sky, everything alive should be mourning with him. The sunshine that lightly warmed his perfectly black suit itched and angered him. Head bowed, the back of his neck was getting close to burning and the sunlight was mocking him. Mocking his pain. It’s a beautiful day to everyone else in the world, a day that people would never believe was full of loss. And sorrow.
Watching her rosewood coffin being lowered into the ground he contemplated sorrow. The lack of tears at such somber events was finally evident to his dry eyes. Simple loss flowed from widow’s eyes, but sorrow, true pain at losing this fallen person, couldn’t even be recognized here.…
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I moaned again about writing. We crossed into the park and he was saying it will be OK and I was saying I don’t know. A woman and baby sat at the fountain in the park. He said, why don’t you start over? I said, I already have a story. I don’t need a new one. The woman glanced around and removed the baby’s shirt. She dipped her hand into the silvery pool as water shot from the mouth of the ocean god above. Her baby waved his naked arms, and she lifted her hand from the pool. What rose from the water was the oldest vessel on earth, a cup pressed together by the hands of women thousands of years before. Her terracotta skin poured the cool liquid onto her baby, as if upon turned soil.…
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The town of Bastrop looked as if a fire-breathing dragon had careened above the twenty mile stretch of land, incinerating everything below. To his right and left, he saw thousands of blackened and jagged stumps and half-trees, trailing into the distance as far as his eyes could see. The ground below was sable earth and ash.
Jon tried to imagine the fire, the highway empty and hot, the sky bright and smoking from flames. Not a living soul within a mile, nothing to be heard but the crackling and whirring of an inferno. The loud and constant sound of nothing, because no living thing would hear it.
How long did this go on behind the livings’ eyes, he wondered. When did the fire finally die, satiated?…
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Why do you draw the sheets
over your head
and shrink from the day?
Is it because your father
taught you life
was an aching tooth
to be endured until
they finally removed it?
Or that friends’ fatal illnesses
began with nothing more
than a numbness in the arm
or a lump in the throat
and you’ve lost your energy
of late?
Or is it the anniversaries
of those who,
lulled by the frosty season,
never awakened at all?
You search for them
in your brooding dreams,
your footsteps echoing
down deserted streets
in cities with no name.
Stretching out your arms now,
you are relieved to find
a warm body next to yours.
You press her hand
and paddle to the kitchen
and set a pot of coffee there
for two.…
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I’m just one on the assembly line
Strung up on a bar stool
Torso pierced by your
Meat hook irises
Hands glide along the
Glinting metal counter
“Let me buy you a drink.”
Just slip that liquid past my teeth
Let the grog sweeten the meat
You dress my flesh,
Pepper me with compliments
“So pretty,” you say. “Such a pretty girl.”
And I wonder
Do my flanks meet your standards?
Do you enjoy the pulsing
Frenzy of my jugular?
Do you want to drain the blood
From my lips?
Grasp my hips
And split me in two?
Process me
Into pieces
For easier digestion?
Well, buddy
Let me break it down to the bones
You are more like me
Than you’d like to be
And we
Are nothing but
Gristle and stardust
You’ve seen the butcher.…
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