They liked to play a lot of weird twin jokes. Mateo would slap his own cheek and Julián would cry out in pain. They would dress in the same way to see how long it would take for people to figure out who was who. They also developed a secret language that turned out to be a mixture of Turkish and Spanglish. The mixing of Spanish and English was easy, this was how we grew up. The...
The threshold that divides his memory in two was a deep gap. This deep emptiness was filled with a hum. The sound of shouting. Tear gas. With nerve gas. With fog. The void was covered with the smell of burnt people. Megaphone sounds. Threats. Crumbling walls. With shattered doors. There’s never been a threshold, there’s never been one.
TV anchors gab about binge-
watching, riots, and tattoos.
The machine has a boo boo.
We are in some deep doo doo.
Blue jays peck red berries,
91 degrees and I am a sap.
Jupiter’s ma pushes old news:
It’s more fun with someone.
Okay, steeple chaser, let’s see
your stuff. Here’s a hot ticket
for the...
In Prince’s trunk was a red leash and a gray duffle bag fraying at the seams, and inside the cheap bag was a Smith & Wesson M&P 9mm. I knew the make and model because the old man had one.
“Looks like a .40 S and W,” Riveaux announced into her handset. Sweat rolled down her wrists, from under her plastic blue gloves, as she carefully pulled objects...
“If you do the crime, you do the time,” the old adage warns. For me, though, crime time was the best part of the week. On Sunday nights during my youth, the PBS television channel aired the Masterpiece Mystery program: detective shows like Poirot and Miss Marple. Mysteries were the only entertainment interest shared...
Klara and the Sun, Kazuo Ishiguro’s first novel since his Nobel Prize (2017) explores the nature of human love and the ethics of Artificial Intelligence. The narrator is Klara, a human-like android known as an Artificial Friend or “AF,” explicitly designed to be a companion for a human child. Klara’s unique perspective draws us into her world: a near...
Aysel was grumpy. She would look for defects wherever she went. Then, she would take the best seat with an air expecting deference. I would respectfully beseech her company; she would oblige me and scooch over. She didn’t like guests much. If someone laughed a lot, she...
I have just one request. If you have ever been bent or folded or broken this way some time in the past, or if you stayed very straight, but heard that someone close to you experienced something like this, please contact me at the telephone number below. I bought a voicemail machine just in case I’m not at home when you call. And just in case there is a problem with the voicemail, I also added my...
think the silence when you are silent!
think by tearing, splitting the tissues down
now I am still I am
deprived of your eyes, turn down
with going by the fade skin
it is the mystery of word
was that frightening wall built
by raising from the base
...
soars high blistering
wings stitched with wax
melt
into liquid ache
her
arctic touch is the wind
the inevitable plunge to gin
induced reveries
the scorching sins
born, burnt and belied
in the hollow mind
of a-freed flight
pure sorcery is love
xxx
I’m quite blurry. Suppose it’s Thames.
Suppose my mind diminishes in front of a naked woman
Suppose I’m running among llamas
Suppose my legs got longer wrapped around history
Suppose I found myself speaking a bleary language this morning
Suppose there are two swirls on red carpets I cannot choose which one to fall onto
Suppose I called you in the middle...
I.
Paranoia’s Infinity
Dying, I’ll not happen.
II...
Statement of Record