Our synapses start firing as we form and recollect anecdotes or events that have impacted us throughout our lives. We lose and regrow important brain connections that may lead to a forgotten smile or worse. There is a certain amount of suspension of disbelief when we listen to a recounting of such stories, especially when the elocutionist is a charming storyteller, past his centennial year. I hate to admit that part, questioning how clear or fuzzy a memory appears. Most of the time, it isn’t …
In the goldening late afternoon sun, screeching green loros fly from tree to eucalyptus tree. A boy rides a white horse bareback down a dirt street. · Now cricket song swells in the rose-brushed twilight reflected upon the steady river. There chiquilines (children) skins sun-toasted, still play in the waters. . The near-full moon whitens the dense brush. Frogs have joined that grillo chorus. . In the midst of this starry night, I hear the sputtering …
Fixer Upper I’ve always felt a need to be a fixer. When I was young, and my father an alcoholic, I went to the library and discovered that making meals with carbohydrates would lessen the desire to drink. I made lots of spaghetti. Huge bowls of mashed potatoes. Freshly baked cookies. Then he wouldn’t come home for supper. Later, I’d hear him stumble home late at night, almost morning, puking in the bathroom, cursing up the stairs as he stumbled to bed. Finding apricot pits to cure Mom’s …
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 …
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 …
after a line by Hafizah Geter January. You left your apartment in Cincinnati—all that light, its wide windows, its clean kitchen, its full-belly fridge—and met me halfway up Route 27. It was night by then, and I drove down from Oxford, leaving my place—its hollow door, empty cupboard, matted shag carpet. The road was two-lane, and we must have each pulled off to the side, and I must have gotten in your car. Like so much of the year I was twenty-seven, that part is hazy. You kept the heat on …