If the mind is one of those Piranesi prisons, she said, full of darkly nested architectural redundancies—as we know the human brain is, with its neurons like ropes slung precariously from cell to cell, and interrupted spiral staircases going neither up nor down, and ruined stone lions hinting at some tapestried past when all this …
Begin with knowing the comma is a word and the word is always fuckin’. Forget the gerund, then torque the lazy u into an a, and let the vowel kneel into the roof of your mouth like a penitent against a church pew. Stretch the c into the k, graceful as Astaire in blackface. Now …
Anyone who makes tasty food has to be a good person, because think of all the love that goes into cooking:salt and pepper, sprinkle a little extra cheese, and pop open a bottle of Syrah, or if we’re eating at my parents’ in Las Vegas,we’re drinking Tsingtao beer, my father’s favorite, and he adds more …
Rita came home from the war. The town was not as if she had never left. Some things had changed. The Taco Bell, for instance, was closed, but another had opened on the next street. The Church of the Passionate Blood, with its stained-glass Christ as slim and pale and sweet as a glowworm, had …
(From the series How to Celebrate National Days: Instructions for Enjoying Pseudoholidays) June 1, 2018 Think back to when you were a kid and you’d give the classroom globe a spin, stop it with your fingertip, and vow to move to whatever location you landed on. Recall how sometimes you’d hit the ocean and have …
In the Silk City, seventeen-year-old Jennie Bosschieter makes ribbons inside a factory. Men work the vats of the neighboring dye houses, coloring so many miles of silk thread that they could connect Paterson, New Jersey, to the Netherlands, the country where Jennie was born, thousands of times and still leave enough to spare for the …
As hollow as a gutted fish, a hole in the sand, a cistern cracked along the seam— There is no filling such emptiness. And yet— Stitch it shut. Pour and pour, if you wish. Wish and wish, but it’s wasted— Water carried to the garden in your cupped palms. Might as well seal an ember …
At a bar, a man says Love the hair, says it’sthe best hair, baby. I’m Republican but would totally go liberal for you.At a gas station, a man’s Damn girl, those titsknocks me into the pump and I, too, canbe machine. Shudder. Waiting for use. Tick. Queue.*When I was young, in our basement, where Africahung …
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