My grandmother taught me it is always Margaret we grieve for. I watch her sleep, catheter in. When she’s awake she’s partly here, leapfrogging. into lacunae of pasts, poor Elly who Emeline took in despite having 12 children already, the mountain doctor coming the day she prayed that God not take Nancy. He took a […]
Poetry 79
Noel Sikorski: “Make it like your skin”
The milk falls like bird-shit, spreading web-like as it hits the black surface of Sal’s coffee. “That’s not you, peaches,” he says, his long gray whiskers jailing the yellow of his smoking teeth. In the back office, Laz does blow, white as the gallon milk pulling my hand closer to the paper cup coffee still […]
Sam Ruddick: Surgery With Violin
Joanna was six, Her face, her smile, gigantic For her small body. She played her violin, And I remembered My father’s heart: They had to stop it for the surgery, Saw his sternum in half, Pull his ribs apart, breaking them. We watched the operation Through a window, Bright red blood on the doctor’s apron […]
Eric Ozawa: University Library
In the university library on a Wednesday night after the semester has ended, you try to find an isolated table, but cannot escape the diversity of life that the library shelters in all seasons. The woman with red pants hidden behind a carrel twenty feet away cannot stop herself from burping over and over again. […]
Sanjana Nair: Pepper Pike, 1999
My tiny mother is alone, dragging the huge sofa across the upstairs floor again, pushing her small bones. This is her rebellion against illness. Whenever it happens, the house’s parts start moving. My father is in the garden. When the house is in motion, he removes himself. He will not bear witness to rearrangement. Above, […]
Carley Moore: Easy
This morning I turned on myself. In the woods I called my leg. “Don’t go. At least not far. Stay to the left of me if not with me.” But I felt it go as I talked about throwing away the newspapers, eating the fish that landed on the table, and what to do when […]