Page 4 - Issue 159 News Today

You drove through the city where your mother arrived decades earlier, her clothes tied up in a bedsheet, her Chinese-to-English dictionary dog-eared on the page with your name. You passed fields pearled with people, stopping at a gas station where everyone stared at you, the man in a truck carrying logs thin as shinbones, the woman driving a trailer full of black horses, their

Wool socks. Diapers. Mittens. Hats. Dresses. The fear of God. Dark rye flour. Clogs made from scraps of lumber and leather. The Torah in Hebrew and Russian. One good wool suit. A child’s necktie. The Tsenah Urenah. A straight razor. A hand mirror. The plague of boils. Photographs of faces no longer considered human. The plague of darkness. Armbands bearing the Star of David. Wild yeast. Letters from Palestine and America. A sweater knitted from the remnants of other sweaters. Pots and pans. A...

Sometimes, I throw a light on my bloody history and see myself running through the street of my childhood. Sweat and water dripping from head to toe while my body cruises through space and time with great speed, and passion tingling down my hollowed soul. I ran toward the cathedral. I wanted to make it in life. I wanted to be successful. It seemed too hard for my young self. I wanted to stand up for myself and crush whatever obstacles stood in my way. Early in life, I learned that passion took ...

Polyphonicas a frog heartbeating without the frogand hearts of different sizesbumping aroundinside itit is bestthe sound of the Atlanticentering a bungalowfrom arounda Basque mountainthe old waywindows facing inlandbay’s wind at my backwakes me looking into dirtI go trekand find the coastI live onsalty wafer of aircuts early through the bedroomits rush ricochetinga blue

The thump rocked the concrete walls of Helene’s grocery shop, unleashing echoes from her years living at Prospect Manor, a low-income apartment complex in Oakland, California. There, youths had haunted the basketball grounds at all hours, seemingly drawing energy from dribbles on the cracked asphalt, which harbored in its crevices ancient gum and cigarette butts. Over time, the sound of bouncing basketballs had lodged itself in Helene’s mind, squatting beside static TV noise from the neighb...

There’s something in the woods behind the house. Laura can hear it through the open window underneath the patter of rain as she nurses the baby. The thud of paws against the ground. The rush of breath as it snuffles, searching for food. Third night in a row. Each night, the something hunts along the same path between the palm trees and the fence line near her bedroom window. Each night, it sounds like it’s getting closer. The baby’s lips and tongue pull at Laura’s nipple three times and...

How to rebuild me when I fall apartAfter Roger ReevesI want a spine a gun barrel throat. A voice with steel boots.I want to command a lover who leaves devours me.I want to rent my body to a soul brave to be naked in this body in the street.

The Café Delice menu was just big enough to hide Rosemary’s face if she ducked down. She had made sure to sit with her back to the window, so that the afternoon sun fell directly on her quarry: the late middle-aged couple sitting two tables in front of her. Rosemary’s face, already well hidden by the café menu, would be even more obscured by its backlighting just in case the man (Dave or Dan or Stan, one of those names) decided to turn around. This was an extra precaution she did not have...

My love mentions that people see stars bestfrom the corners of their eyes, that conescatch color in the centers, but it’s the rodson the outsides that fetch the dimmest portionsof the visible spectrum—and I am forcedto reconcile with the fact that something so roundas vision still pushes people into corners

—a painting by the British artist J. M. W. Turner.