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Fiction

The Fisherman’s Seven Dreams

In the first dream, Laxmatte, a fisherman who lives in a small cottage on the coast of Finland, removes Maiju, his plain, broad wife, to a red rocky isle in the middle of the Baltic Sea, where they remain for seven months. He pulls pink salmon in spring, herring in summer, white salmon in fall. On days after a good haul, Maiju chops the head off each fish, smokes their wet red bodies on racks, and wraps them in dried seaweed. Every three weeks, the fisherman and his wife bring the dried fish to …

Poetry

Wild Dogs

On an afternoon walk, a cold wind went through me like a shot (whiskey, brandy, something dark) and he came to me, my grandfather. Winter like a dog at my fingertips—my first dog, Cochise, gorgeous, gentle, fur like snowfields. After Cochise died, my grandfather sat me down on the porch and said, “Everybody lives, and everybody dies. It’s called the circle of life.” And it made so much sense at eleven, …

Nonfiction

Dislodging Fish Bone

When I was a child, I swallowed a bite of fried catfish whole. A reckless pluck of my chopsticks in a hungry and juvenile daze. It was momentarily joyous — the taste of hot salt, of nước mắm and crunchy fish skin, the fat faltering under the snap of my teeth before it melted in my mouth. Then, I choked. A barb of bone, I’m sure no bigger than my thumb, lodged itself in my throat. I panicked, staring at my mother across the table. There was a messy string of Việt and hasty shakes of the head …

Poetry

God, Diagnosed With Dementia

You know he forgets names, where he left the keys. Some days floods cover land he says would never drown again. He hears my prayers then asks me to repeat, calling it a refrain. I abstain from meat and wine for forty days hoping to reset my soul. I try not to use my lover's name in vain. And yet I curse the man who forgets my birthday, forgets to pick up after the dog. Senescence is such a sonic word I hate to discover its meaning. I hate every diagnosis that dares doubt to double …

Nonfiction

Counting Stones at the Bottom of the Tigris River

Stone 1 The day hope died a burden was lifted. Al -Yahud’s ropes were untied. A sack of golden bangles, clay tablets and unleavened Babylonian bread, khubz fatir, fell to the bottom of the river — flat bread carries no joy. This is why my grandparents are silent. Their history dumped in the river. This is why I dive in, seeking what’s at the bottom of the riverbed, find the turban of the chief rabbi, Chacham Bashi Moshe, unravelling in my DNA; gravel and clay remnants I add to my …

Poetry

harvest prayer in Homer, AK

i. Fucking on the moldy leather couch, exhales drop clumsy from our mouths like apples blackened on the branch. In this version of heaven, I pull the stars down in fistfuls, fitful and soggy, let them rain down like cake. I tear at your body like it’s a rotting roof, like I might somehow reach through to sky. ii. I tried to plant a future in plastic rows like an alien crop but the spring days thrashed feral beneath me echoing You are nowhere to be found. iii. you were a river—I walked …