Excerpts

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 …

Drought as Desire

orange groves to protectin a land of mini-malls when seasons stopped I accepteddrought as though it were life we had no water we learnedto harvest in thirst  

Trade Matters

for a slave to snore in sleepingis counted a very great fault indeed no-one buys an adult slave (domestic—wild from inland is a different matter) the worst is the treacherous weatherthe tedium, the wearisome monotony Note: from Ternate,

View of Toledo

after El Greco Beacons on the skyscrapers hovered,The river’s black mirror jeweled with their lights. Watch as the exotic crosses loomed into viewOn top of the Byzantine church. The sign for Homestead floated overhead,And then a sky as wide as the river valley Working in the darkness in a world of flame,Ladles the Dippers above …

Tangled

Call My Name

When I was seven, my sea captain father at sea, my mother a strobing lighthouse of missing, I stood alone in my bedroom, renaming all my toys Melissa. You, and you, and you. A child’s narcissism, maybe. A punishment for my dolls. I didn’t choose my name, but I could choose to give it away. …