Excerpts
To the Whirlwinds
It was on their second lap around Tsézhinii’áhí when the skies rapidly darkened. Late May and Red Valley hadn’t yet had much rain. But it was always this way. Always dry, even up to the tips of the mountains. Rain, when it does storm, falls so briefly in the valley that within the length of …
Migration
Last night and for some days preceding a holy migration: of praying mantises, earthworms, and a single black salamander with yellow spots, the slick shiny black wet body of him moved slowly just outside my front door, gentle, on the mat that says ‘‘Welcome.’’ I am thinking now of your ability to survive—somehow, amid fire, …
Sun Perch
for Karis It is late, but outside the night is glowing with snow & streetlight, quiet but for the occasional growl & skid of the plows. Winter, Syracuse, where the feinting snow fusses & scatters until it collapses roofs & power lines. And now sitting in that gauzy light, nothing but the sounds of sleep, …
Angel in the House
My wife is becoming an angel, or some kind of spiritual being, I’m not sure exactly what. The other day I moved to touch her and my hand went right through her—right where her shoulder used to be—and scooped out a light-speckled cloud of her into the air that took a moment to reform. She …
WHEN YOU BRING IN THE PAPER
You’ve seen these photos before, empty bird cage ribs of a child sitting in the dust. But this copper, naked body, shining supine on the front page of August 2, 2011, seems more insect than child, swollen chest, a thorax, bent limbs jutting at angles, hip fleshless as the joint of a Jerusalem cricket, skull …
THE CANARY KEEPER
In a neat house on the outskirts of Market Town lived a small-time actor, a man whose legendary ability to cry on cue had deserted him. Newspaper reviews from long ago called him ‘‘The Fountain.’’ Nowadays he was dried up, his tear ducts clogged with despair. If the footlights grew dim in the presence of …
MAKING LUNCH
Because nothing I see this morning brings us closer to spring, snow falling out of the Jersey sky into the cloudy river, wet shoes facing toe-in by the stove, the uppers spotted with rock salt and because each sound signifies winter— wind in the wires and the far-off train like the voice of a child …
GREY BIRDS
When I glance out the window three grey birds fly through me and fade as dots in the gloomy June sky. I’m one of them now— maybe all three. Or are the four of us now someone I knew a long time ago, just becoming conscious of the fog?
CATHY PARK HONG. ENGINE EMPIRE.
The existence of ‘‘smart’’ snow that ‘‘monitors you,’’ staring, watching, studying. Being online constantly, 24/7, and merely having to blink your eyes to go off. Flying aerocabs. Antique ringtones that remind one of a time when it was all so much simpler. Everywhere, a complete erasure of the ‘‘old realism.’’ Cathy Park Hong’s latest collection, …