Giddy
I. February, a year since my first episode, and I think I count past 200 beats a minute as I lie in bed, listening to my heart. My arms and legs tingle, like the flesh washed out to static under the blood rush. I try to stay still, to look …
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A dirge for a sound long unheard
I I write you a love poem in a language far removed from my own. With words I’d never utter for you to hear. When I read it for you, I replace five-syllabled words with memorized sounds. I want you to admire the poet. II You edit …
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Rue Paul Valéry
Written by Immanuel Mifsud Translated by Ruth Ward & Immanuel Mifsud You might get sleepy as you look at the throng gathering in the square, despite the band playing cheerful marches, making colorful merriment on this Sunday morn. When the parade is over, and people go back to sleep, …
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What Fills the Spaces
The Floor The orange parquet where you sat with your grandson, tickled his neck, his toddler belly. Where he dumped out the tub of plastic animals. Where he, the gorilla, saved you, the giraffe, from tumbling off a blanket cliff. The floor where your beer stood untouched for a time, …
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An Apology, from a Daughter of Mormon Pioneers
I had never once thought of my period these past six years, its kicks and strains; the crimson prints stamped into my Levi’s—not until I, walking 600 East in Salt Lake City, stumble upon a memorial, rounded with peeling Doric columns, a 1930s marker from the Daughters of Utah Pioneers: …
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Play Pretend
My mother called on a summer day while I was riding my bike. This call happens once a year, sometimes twice. Always on her terms. So I stopped to walk. “Hello?” I lifted my voice to sound chipper and bright. Not angry that I was going into debt to pay …
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