New World Writing Quarterly

Wherever You Are

A city changes you
after a decade or so, and when
you return, even a year later,
the city’s moved on, changing
new peo­ple in its time,
its place. Very rarely,
a stone mid­night, –more

They were in my mother’s garage, packed into a card­board box and left to the nuclear heat of Florida, the bugs, storms, and humid­i­ty. How long have they been in here? I asked my moth­er, and she said, Must be about two years since he –more

Self-Portrait as the Fool

I’ve got one foot dan­gling off a cliff while the oth­er is drip­ping bells from the ankle. I wear par­ti-col­ored har­le­quins & say the truest thing. Careful, it might be tinged nasty, though no one lis­tens to insights when –more

from Fingerling Lakes

Lab

The Bio teacher’s
stepped out for a cigarette

when Fen recoils
from the tar­nished tray

and says she won’t
dis­sect the fetal pig

This body has been
ren­dered unto the Lord

and we do Him injury
to break its vessel

Sylvia’s unim­pressed
–more

He jumps and sings
with hos­pi­tal alarm
and then leans on my shoulder
as he begs me
to wipe away his tears.

He tries to mouth
the word, pur­ple,
then points to the sun,
as if he wants to prowl
to the end of the rainbow.

He wrecks
the TV, the lights, –more

Polaroid

We’ve gone through the rooms togeth­er, assigned
this keep­sake and that. Who knows what
we’ve missed, or over­looked, what’s lost
or for­got­ten, but at least I found the shoebox
stuffed with old pho­tos. It has some­thing
–more

Entrance

When it’s time to enter
I’m stand­ing in line
stand­ing and wait­ing in line
I don’t even know if I’m entering
or wait­ing to enter
is it eas­i­er to enter
when you don’t even know
if you are?
–more

Absurdery

Once upon this time, in a coun­try far away, the ruler was very
old. The red hats had begun to dol­ly him to the podium,

his jack­et flap­ping, at first with the cur­tain closed. He enjoyed
the ride, the breeze of it, like a tilt­ing Segway. –more

Four years ago, fol­low­ing a a fair­ly bru­tal two-year bat­tle with can­cer, my moth­er died; a relief, in the end, though it still does­n’t feel so. Some deep-lying tumour in the breast missed by the usu­al mam­mo­grams and only caught after it had already –more

1

The Wise Woman of Elety was tak­ing her young grand­son along on a boat trip to Joramca, the island of flow­ers. This was the peak sea­son for the rarest blooms. Though she wasn’t sure they would inter­est him, she thought she’d take a chance. She –more

FORGOTTEN WHEELS

Abandoned shop­ping carts
roll like patients in a hospital.
Wheels frozen, spin­ning in puddles,
car­ry­ing the bags of
mid­night customers,
gro­ceries for families
liv­ing in burn­ing buildings.

Footsteps echo in the
park­ing lot,
walk­ing –more

LATE NIGHT, WYOMING, 1972

Ten days out of high school I was on a Greyhound head­ed west with John K. It was his idea to ride bus­es and hitch­hike to California or until our mon­ey ran out. I’d been try­ing to decide what to do with my life, maybe go to –more

1. Elastic Band

She found a thick blue elas­tic band, frayed and crum­bling around the edges, wrapped around a jar of hair­clips. It had once wound around the gai-lan stem from Chinatown. She was six. The wet scent of the veg­eta­bles and soy filled –more

The first day of fall quar­ter I meet the young man who will kill me. Dressed in black, the stone-faced boy stomps past me to the back of the class­room. He smirks a chal­lenge, snort­ing at the shar­ing of pro­nouns. I hope he’ll drop the class, but he –more

The AI Wishes It Was a Plough

or a screw­driv­er, a tooth­brush, a spatula—anything
with­out elec­tric­i­ty or mov­ing parts. Even a stapler
would be too much. Even a pair of scis­sors, a paper
clip. The AI yearns, nat­u­ral­ly, for a pure sim­plic­i­ty
–more

Hiroshi Sugimoto’s pho­to­graph, Sea of Japan, Hokkaido, frames the hori­zon dead cen­ter – wisps of gray clouds above slate and onyx rip­ples. It’s nei­ther night nor day. I asked my son what he remem­bered about our trip to Japan. He was –more

The Stream

I am four years old, walk­ing bare­foot in a cold, clear, flow­ing stream. My mom holds my hand as we step around rocks, our feet sink­ing into the soft silt of the streambed. It’s a hap­py adven­ture, until we get out and my mom dis­cov­ers a –more

Messes

Jason’s moth­er opens the door to his room to tell him she has a new boyfriend. He is stay­ing overnight now and Jason should know. “Roy does­n’t want to scare you or any­thing if you run into each oth­er in the morning.”

“All right.”

She stands –more

They drove from San Anselmo to Mill Valley for a Christmas cel­e­bra­tion in the town cen­ter.  Both towns were in Marin County, just north of San Francisco, across the Golden Gate Bridge, but Mill Valley, being clos­er to the city, and more seclud­ed amongst –more