New World Writing Quarterly

Cane Hung

Wooden cane hung
on wood­en fence –
old man had to blow
his nose, needed
two hands for the job.
If he crooked his cane
across his elbow,
it would tumble
to the ground, dis­tant ground
where he’d –more

I left the front door to dis­cov­er what end­ed up being a 1944 John Deere B trac­tor parked in the grav­el dri­ve­way. Not that I’m a trac­tor guy. I’m not a farm imple­ment, –more

She used her old Brownie cam­era on us. Something was won­der­ful that I didn’t under­stand. The cam­era had been in her fam­i­ly since the 1930s. I’d nev­er seen my moth­er look com­fort­able with com­pli­cat­ed con­trap­tions. But that day she had per­fect –more

Did I ever tell you about the time I did mush­rooms at Disney World? It was actu­al­ly pret­ty bor­ing. Alex is exam­in­ing his nail beds under a curl of cig­a­rette smoke. It’s easy to play­act matu­ri­ty out here as the day seeps beneath –more

“It ain’t what they call you; it’s what you answer to.” ― W.C. Fields

We might deny it, but most of us don’t like who we are. Maybe we pre­tend we’re some­one else. Maybe we don’t know, or, maybe we just don’t care.  Take me for instance. –more

Pistol

Guy usu­al­ly gave the big “Nigerian” Tamil pra­ta-mak­er at Har Yasin a lit­tle rab­bit-chop­ping mas­sage when he came in for take-out. Two-three minute vig­or­ous ham­mer made the fel­low gri­mace, but easy to tell he was the bet­ter for it. –more

If you haven’t watched this on YouTube, you –more

Nonfiction
Rain pelt­ed the win­dow as I sipped my man­go smooth­ie, feel­ing home­sick for Seattle, where the skies are always gray and rainy.

Seattle tap water is deli­cious. It tastes best if you forego a cup and drink straight from the faucet. I drink –more

This mag­ic moment is made for democ­ra­cy. It gave White America anoth­er chance to do right by Black women and legit­imize their claim of democ­ra­cy. Additionally I would be remiss if I failed to acknowl­edge that this is a tran­scen­dent moment that hon­ors –more

In Memory of the Blue Girl Sahar Khodayari

it is not a dou­ble-dog dare
to see this wide-eyed world anchored by
hat tricks between men in Iran
the bright blue branched wig and ochre over­coat cannot
shield your hushed hurry
you criss­cross the arena’s entrance
–more

Blindsided

Say there’s an acci­dent, a wreck I’m in
but didn’t cause. Say I hit my head, hard,
and see a blind­ing baf­fle­ment of stars
I can’t blink away. Say I try to stand
but dizzi­ness sits me back down. I wait
wob­bling –more

“Sometimes When we Touch” by Dan Hill drifts from the speak­ers in the wait­ing room. I have to look up the singer because I’ve for­got­ten, if I ever knew his name at all.

Tuning out the sap­pi­ness is impos­si­ble. I can’t focus on any­thing else as –more

Terminus

There were nev­er many trains for us to take
and most are long gone by now.
The big arrivals board is blank. Or broken.
The help desk went dark hours ago.

That scruffy local cross­es the decrepit hall
for anoth­er quick one at the bar.
He seems –more

Below the foot­bridge, traf­fic was an end­less wave. Sarge fragged a bot­tle over the chain­link. It land­ed in the crush­er of a pass­ing garbage truck, shattered.

“Your ride is here, don’t miss it,” he said, cock­ing a thumb at the reced­ing machine.

I –more

Julia Forrest is a Brooklyn based artist. She works strict­ly in film and prints in a dark­room in her apart­ment. Her art has always been her top pri­or­i­ty and in this dig­i­tal world, she con­tin­ues to work with tra­di­tion­al wet film pro­cess­ing. She prefers –more

1. We weren’t sup­posed to be home, both of us feign­ing sick, under­wear down around some of our ankles. Senior year. Promises made to love each oth­er forever.

2. Morning announce­ments inter­rupt­ed by the turn­ing on of TVs, the large box­es anchored to –more

i 

When I awoke, I real­ized that both my con­tact lens­es and my moth­er were miss­ing, although at first I was far more con­cerned about the con­tact lens­es. After all, with­out them how much more dif­fi­cult would it be to find my Mom, not to men­tion our –more

The Color of Hunger

It’s New Year’s Day and the streets look hun­gover. In the back­seat, Malcolm and I have loaded in our French artist friends, Bullet and Stephen. They hold hands and mut­ter roman­tic bits we’d like to under­stand and mut­ter. Love talk in English –more

Resurrection

We are born, buried for a while, then spring up just as everything
is clos­ing. ~ John Ashbery

Judges marched back­wards up the steps. I saw it was time to ques­tion the trees. Now all the leaves lie brown in the ditch. Girls gone. The new­ly shoed hors­es –more

heat wave

heat wave day. a mar­riage pro­pos­al between the moth and the win­dowsill. it hov­ers an inch in the air. trapped between peel­ing ledge and rigid wall of blinds — a suf­fo­cat­ing union.

he, humanoid, top­less, wilts in the hot cen­tre of the room. like the –more