New World Writing Quarterly

It is dif­fi­cult to despair com­plete­ly while hold­ing an umbrella.

A small house of ribs and fab­ric, sprung open with a click, lift­ed like a mod­est crown above the head. In Tokyo where I live, they are every­where: out­side sta­tions –more

Stillbirth The night, awake with silence, bathed in dark­ness.Blue corn and yel­low moon. Soft palm, unmov­ing. Coldfeet, point­ing towards heav­en. It is rain­ing again, thistime with a dry sky and wet eyes. Effluent nose. Tiredwomb. Death is born again. Unwashed. Unwanted. Unwanted. Unwashed. Death is born again. Tired

womb. Effluent nose. Wet eyes and this time with a dry sky,
It is rain­ing again. Pointing towards heav­en, cold feet. Un-
mov­ing, soft palms. Yellow moon and blue corn. Bathed in
dark­ness, long with silence, awake, the night.

~

Wisdom –more

Breakfast Room

She can tell by the scent who uses the hotel-pro­vid­ed lotion, who brought their own. Some of the break­fasters are clear­ly try­ing to bal­last them­selves for the day ahead; oth­ers stick to the diet from home. The –more

a.

The dead pos­sess and are obsessed with bod­ies. I know this because once I turned six­ty-five, my body turned on me with appari­tions crouch­ing at every crooked turn my body took, drool­ing to repo it. My hands became my mother’s. –more

American Goddess

When we returned to Guangzhou for vis­its, all the aunts and uncles bum­bled against each oth­er to lay down their offer­ings of dried per­sim­mons, fra­grant lychees, can­died papayas in crin­kle paper and cop­per coins around Ah Ma who sighed, –more

Dermaflash Luxe Anti-Aging Sonic Dermaplaning Exfoliation Tool, in Pop Pink

The ad in the mag­a­zine at the eye doctor’s office says the peach fuzz on my face must be mowed, that these tee­ny-tiny hairs obscure my true beau­ty. –more

Tonight, in the mer­lot-stained cottage,
we hurl crumbs at the wildfowls
from cran­ber­ry-bruised windows—
we must be timely.
Candied apples, cream cheese, pump­kin butter—
we store pies in ceram­ic –more

Legacy

It was rain­ing when­ev­er my grand­par­ents vis­it­ed my great-grand­fa­ther. Shrubs bloomed pink, white and pur­ple. Everything glis­tened, and the mag­ic of the cut glass door­knob which felt too sharp for my hand opened into –more

This Moment
for the Piperno family

1. Blessed Is.

There is no future with­out memory.
There is no future with­out feeling
ful­ly the moment in which we live.
At bad news we bless the One True Judge.
At good news we bless the One –more

StellaSue hat­ed the name her mama assigned her and then the one her hus­band gave her not long before he gave her bruis­es and three babies she didn’t nec­es­sar­i­ly ask for in such quick suc­ces­sion that she nick­named her­self “The Chute.”

“That’s –more

Postcard
             Radnoti’s Coat

Miklos, the weath­er is here and your postcards.
The ink, soaked from the slow melt of your body,
has run from black to watery blue, and I’m thinking
of your trench coat, that if bul­lets were –more

It hap­pened in a sprawl­ing lab­o­ra­to­ry in south­ern Italy. It hap­pened in a dingy vet’s office next to a Domino’s.

Oliver slept in the front seat, curled up in his fuzzy blan­ket like a black silken hand­ker­chief tucked in –more

The Prodigy Maker

The man with no eyes and ears who tunes pianos tap-tap-taps at our door at the creaky-crack of dawn and plunks his satchel of tools down next to the spinet. His bul­bous nose glis­tens like a shim­mer­ing pond. His breath, like scram­bled –more

The girl showed up every day that spring. Black pony­tail under a back­wards black cap, car­go cut-offs to her shins, worn-out com­bat boots she swapped for Vans yanked out of an over­stuffed back­pack. Her board was old and beat to shit, but she was obvi­ous­ly –more

At first, the babysit­ter did not under­stand what the chil­dren were attempt­ing to tell her. That a man had emerged from the barn. That he had appar­ent­ly been liv­ing in the barn. That he had gone into the woods, and, not long –more

Act Now

I should have been a dolphin,
seems fair.
I should have been a loveseat,
passed from moth­er to daugh­ter to son
then chopped into kindling
to keep the tin­der com­pa­ny as it burns.
Fire where there’s father
–more

Status Report

Writing a poem feels
dan­ger­ous
again. We need to

be care­ful when
choos­ing
our words and then

we need to say them.

~

Love Song

You can see how Ptolemy
mis­un­der­stood the –more

What first gave us the idea is that Gwen was a lead in the school play, and her char­ac­ter would only love men named Ernest. So we decid­ed that for the next cal­en­dar year, Gwen would only date Alexanders (Alex count­ed), and –more