Excerpts
Catch
I worked at a residential mental health facility for children. I was part of the Native American unit that mostly managed Indian children. Resident Adam, 16, was from the Klamath/Modoc tribe. His father was in prison, mother was an active substance abuser. Meth. Adam lived with his grandparents until he started alcohol and marijuana and …
Between Practice
1. Afternoons in Florida while my favorite jocular jockish cousin suffered summer school, I climbed the tall hot fence of the elementary school behind his house to practice layups and dream of dunks. 2. I was 13, my mother was on a Caribbean cruise ship in a state of longing, her husband was on a …
Race/Race
stock strain family line breed blood skin shape of the head of the pack animal human judge better fitter swiftly to find foot horse car run for your life around town the block the camp to the top the finish contend compete in for against the other the not so great not even in …
In the Land of Kan’an
Hayya 'ala s-salah. Hayya 'ala 'l-falah. Farid answers the call. Stands between two men that connect him to a row of two dozen others, to fourteen centuries of millions more. All facing al-Baytu l-ʿAtīq: The Primordial House, home of the Black Stone. A stone whiter than milk when it fell from Paradise only to be …
This Black Southern Poor Boy’s Blues
I’m no choir boy, nopreacher’s son. Fasting is never doneon purpose. Gin or thighs helps me sleepand both make me forget me for a moment.Most nights she tells me she loves me,others blanket us in silence, when even our orgasmsdon’t speak. I like Saturday night fixes,whatever Johnny brings back from New York City. I’m no …
luam & the flies
umbertide, asmera, new york, october, 2013 It was the end of the world.The world was ending. I sat in my house with the flies. Thoughthe night was dense, was long, we tried to wait for light, to last.But the wind at the doors. & darkness knuckled, flashed its teeth.Outside, the other houses, outside, the solitaryfield, …
Elegy for My Mother’s Mind
When I steady your step on the stairs, you ask not once but twicewhere we’re going—to the car, to the store, Mom, remember? You laugh and say you thought we’d be walking and we are,right into the part of your brain where you’ll lose me, lose the child who picked all 43 tulips you waited …
To a Rosh Hashanah Challah
Sweet bread, stern in youreternal roundness, I sneak piecesof your crust at midnight— for isn’t yours the sacredcircle that we want for asweet new year? The baker infused youwith honey to make us happy,& maybe her kitchen miracle will work: sugar the bitter, renewour sour apples in an orchardthat greens the table. Sweet challah, you’re …
Charcoal
At first I didn’t understand what I would be guarding. When they said “cave paintings,” I pictured canvases hidden underground, like art stolen by the Nazis, but they turned out to be drawings of animals, in charcoal, right on the walls of a cave. Nobody in the village knew about the cave before then, except …