Excerpts
In an Old Hotel
In for the night I empty my pockets,gallery stub, train card, what’s left of all my 20s,and the crushed bloom—Who placed itin my hand, was she a new immigrant, ora hedgefund girl who walked into my 23rd Streetdaydream and said “Eat the body of this flower”—What is this spiky beauty, a tiny sisterto the giant …
Section 8
The afternoon me and Cuckoo find out it’s not the name of our neighborhood, we laugh until we’re drooling and choking on our spit. We roll on the floor until our mom calls us hyenas. Then things are not so funny. The free toys from Salvation Army are embarrassing because we’re Muslim and anyway, Santa …
Nothing Else
Who put a feather in the suggestion box? Who says that I should fly? I can sing, if nothing else, and failing that can strut around in heels, or carry them hooked on the fingers of one hand, my fluted glass in the other, or can let them drop like birds that always die in …
What Is the Sisterhood to Me?
Do you know yourself? I thought I didat 19 when my boyfriend calledfrom the hospital to say he’d been hitover the head with a fire extinguisherand got kicked out of school becauseof some dumb bitch. Who’d predictI’d drive to Westchester Generalthat night, four hours, to see how badit was, like a bus accident localizedto his …
Lament for the American Space Program on Halloween Night
The ten-million-years-ago stars, those glittering fool-makers,impassively contrast their frigid perpetuity with my heart’s transient thud-thud. At my feet, the leaves skittering across the driveway say: Thanatos! Thanatos!as if to shush me with the bug-holed currency from life’s latest bankruptcy. But let me tell you all aboutthis year’s spooky costume, an idea filched from an old …
Karachi Raj
“Aiy, Seema, open the door! What, thieves will come and rob you, so you have to hide?” Hafiz’s nineteen-year-old sister, the unacknowledged pride of the Basti, was hiding out. Late afternoon, when her parents and brother were at work, was a precious time to study. She loved solitude. But neighbors had other ideas. Mithi bai …
Eating Phở with My Grandpa
Nod
I’m ashamed I miss the congregationthe teamwork cheering the Lord’s descent setting us apartchosen as we are I miss the altar the laying of hands the suturing the melodies that vindicate howsoever we needin the hour we bleat like sheep confused & loosed into the blur I want to be among them again nodding bonded by certainty that I’m in the worldbut not of …
The Buses of Montevideo
This special bilingual feature by Jesse Lee Kercheval is a departure for us, but we agreed with the author that for those with both languages this would be a study not so much in translation but in the dynamic of language variation and nuance that these versions of the poet’s imagination offer us. We hope …