– A seasonal riff on the opening paragraph of Moby Dick – Call me Andy. Not long ago – never mind how long precisely – having little or no money in my purse and nothing particular to interest me amongst mortal company, I tended to sail about a little in Dublin City, brought hither and … Read more
TEACHER I know I’ve made a christ of you the way I gather up the crumbs beneath your table, the way I bathe your feet with my hair. But this blind worship won’t do, and I must take and eat new prayer. Teacher! It was not given me to sit at your right hand or … Read more
We were best friends, each the other’s trusted wingman and sometime sponsor and crude litigator who called each other “brother” and “amigo” and “hermano” and “bud” and “homeslice” and took our shoes off politely at the entrances to one another’s new apartments and asked who we were seeing now and exchanged woes and lent each … Read more
Snow fell wild and windy on the city of musicians. A boy, brimming with morning light, stepped out of the doorway into the street. He was greeted with a dancing of snow. The boy looked up into the whirling snowflakes and imagined them carrying musical notes on their backs as they fell to earth. Their … Read more
The Oath The little hand he holds Is all they could find to give him: Wrapped in blue plastic, A hand once brown, now bloodied and black, The hand of one too young for school, The hand of his daughter, Riven in the charred rubble That had been her room, The hand he held so … Read more
December light spills down the halka, through the shutters and across my bed. Living in Fez, the small daily chores take me back to a country lane in Ireland that houses a thatch cottage where my mother and grandparents lived. As the days and months pass, I harbor my habit of disconnection. Studying Darija has … Read more
Old Road Sign The sere severed plywood sign painted a modest white was nailed once to spindly posts among the water oaks. Now by accident it dangles, peeling and warped. Underbrush too dense perhaps to let the fool board fall. The paint is blanched so that it fairly imitates the mists oft seen in bayous … Read more
It was because of Daniel that Mary Ann remembered Tom again; because she’d found out about Daniel’s latest affair. “Latest” was how she would position it to everyone now; one of an incalculable number—whether spaced apart or pressed together didn’t matter anymore because Mary Ann could only see a faceless mass of paramours sprawled one … Read more
Whom You’re Never Told She pleads with her mantras for years—endless In a hill so tranquil, where she is—she always is There she dwells untold, whom you never know—whom you’re never told Bearing the name; Ujung Geni. The Javanese herbalist who cheats Time and death. She broods in her thoughts no other than To live, … Read more
The First of February Well, here’s a pile of puke on a bank of snow, Yoga-pants-purple, budget-cocktail-blue, Lava lurid as a toy volcano, Day-glo confetti frozen stiff as glue. The fire hydrant’s calked in hardened gum. A Phillies Blunt’s in a bottle of Pepsi Inside a purple Shark Week Slurpee, And it looks like someone … Read more