Magazine

Written after the death of Mahsa Amini  Some days, some part of me refuses to put pain down on paper. These are the days I pull away, stretch myself to a place where I know we are not all grieving. On some days, I have to diversify my language, revise my tongue, which drips with sadness and speaks...

Sharp the placenames of reliquary Bitter the taste of the buried I stand hunched by the Lake of Saints Disinter my brutal brutalized heartVouchsafe passage to the newly birthedTo the freshly dead and to the undying  Lightener of stars, ghost of the hollybushBeware nomenclature of fallow...

Tehachapi Earthquake of 1952   Earthquake!my mother yelled when the bed moved across the roomjust before 5 a.m., July 21, 1952. She raninto the street in her nightgown, Screaming and crying,the sticky night turning quickly to day. With no sensefor the White Wolf fault,  where the Tehachapi...

Watchers They knew, but they preferred to donothing other than watching until theybecame the reckless watchers of the planet,buying, selling, owning, using, feasting with hungrymouths, with hungry hearts that loved only consumingeverything the earth offered them gently, generously whilstit turned...

There’s no gender in the box,colors aren’t boys or girlsI tell my three-year-oldwho refuses to take the pink crayon,plump hand a resistant fist. I begin sketching two offerings;a razzmatazz squealer with large snout,mud-palace porcine surely no princess.Next I send shock waves, a blue damselin...

/ Nana said / she knew a thing or two about living / born at the fag end of the century / into just-above poverty / she walked a mile to church / three times every Sunday / for the salvation of her six- year-old soul