“I’m sad,” I tell her, looking for analog in a world of constant digital connection. “I know,” she said, “you used to write great letters, too, and you know a lot of people, but you just need your roots.” “Go outside and listen,” my mother advises. Outside, I see all the life looking for hands, all the […]
Read more "go outside and listen"Once you leave your mother’s breast for the garden you must learn to grow yourself. All greensticks and gangly you will climb fences like ivy and reach for the light or you will crawl the dark way of wolf’s bane skinwalker, shape shifter yee naaldlooshii going to ground on all fours. The latch of love […]
Read more "once you leave"living so close to nature nature is forced to live too close to us barking, braying, biting animals on wheels endless animals — ourselves and others crushed beneath the treads in the desert, murderers steal her name slip into the crown of Isis, an empty throne a horned sun, a winged kite play-pretend at Calipha […]
Read more "birding / breakage"I’m filling my Earl Grey tea cup this morning at work when the weirdest water cooler conversation bubbles up. “Let me ask you a strange question.” I smile nervously, “OK.” “You ever close your eyes and press your fingers into your eyelids?” “Yeah, fireworks light show.” “Exactly!” He flutters his eyes closed and lightly demonstrates […]
Read more "On Floaters and Flashes"There are these mornings, when the bus ride is like waking up third world or secondary planet or first fledgling nightmare. Backpack upon briefcase. Every configuration of facial hair and body musk—last night’s alcohol bleeding through perfume, students and corporate office warriors battling the commute and headache and weariness, armed with nothing but burnt coffee […]
Read more "Ride"Joshua Safran was “raised by lesbian witches in the Haight-Ashbury commune.” By the age of ten, he had hitchhiked thousands of miles with his “Wiccan Welfare” mother, Claudia and alcoholic, abusive stepfather, Leopoldo, where they lived in communes, vans, buses, an ice cream truck and a lean-to stump in the forest. They sought an “elusive […]
Read more "“Free Spirit” an interview with Joshua Safran"I sat waiting for my lunch to be ready. Closing my eyes, the sun warming me, honing in on nearby conversations. “It was just awful!” “Do you want to meet later?” “We have to get back soon.” “What are you hungry for?” And then, “Think of a Chinese word you’d like to see written.” Two […]
Read more "Characterized As Vulnerable"She never hails me friendly over the fence, it is always a conspiracy. She clucks my name quietly from her garden like a secret, her tight curly hair, a dark comb and cape. “Can you hear the boys crowing?” she asks, a pained apology in her eyes. “I didn’t know what they were, but now […]
Read more "nested"memory is paper . . . a thin veil against light scribbled on colored in (sk)etched out painstakingly noted between thin blue and thick red dashes indications of lines to cut, lines to stay within. written rubbered stamped erased embellished boldened copy / paste. stained concentric circular rings starting then stopping time with morning coffee […]
Read more "memory is paper"So, today—well, it’s like everyday, but sometimes more connective than others. A small sea of tables wait quietly and orderly in the dining room. Glinting glassware waiting to be filled. Empty tables waiting for me to wait. Every newly seated table is a microcosm, a little world unto itself. Walking up is a quick study’s […]
Read more "Order Up: Memoirs of a Waitress"
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