I disembark my boat.I am far from home;my beard is long, my hair is longer, and my eyebrows are thick.I am slapping my feet on the concrete streets—my arms flap in the wind like thrashing waves.Towering skyscrapers cackle with a million mouths.Cars honk nasally honks when I cross red lights,cyclists slam grimy hands on their […]
Home An ode to Calliandra haematocephala Pickled Have you ever slit openIndian green chilies? Stuff it with rock salt.Squeeze in the juice of a few full-sized lemons.Leave them in a glass bottle. The winter sunmatures it to a pickle. One bite into itportals me to my childhood when I couldn’t tolerate any heat. Sunayna Pal‘s
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Rage toward the silent voices, the neglectful voices that stand in the middle using their whiteness as the privilege to be a ghost in a fight that leaves more blood than water to drink. Scream toward the bodies in power that line their power suits with dead presidents as the images of the dead and
Yours was my firstfeatherbed.Box stitched billows ofwarmthfloating undera sea offlannel security. Your oversizedold puffy comfortersealed our safe cocoon.living up to its nameembracing mealmost as well asyou did.We slept entwined.seamlesslyconnected, untilThe unfiltered lightinterferedrevealingstark, prescientshadowswe couldn’t ignore. I got up before youstepping ontoyour cold stone floor.(I swear you kept thethermostat at50)leaving the warmthof your bedand you. Christine
So, you want to cook a perfect omelet, huh? Let me tell you, it’s an art. Not just anyone can master the delicate dance of eggs in a pan. It’s like a culinary ballet, and you need to be the star performer. First things first, crack the eggs. None of that shell nonsense – we’re
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Her unkempt hair covers her face and her little hands flail asserting her disgust This will be the first time he holds his tongue The first time he dances with such an innocent girl He’s used to rough used women Used to screaming about their imperfections Sending them back inside their cage Cage the savage
The women who could not bear children at first: Sarai, Rachel, Rebekah, Hannah,Samson’s mother—name not givenElisabeth—John the Baptist’s motherand Michal—the one that got away— Their persistent askingamidst improvisationswas the knowingthat they were capable,deserving and worthy.Such confidence! Had they believed they were barren, truly, they would not have eventuallyconceived. Day and night they travaileddriven by intensity
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Candies in a dish shaped like a leaf. Caramels with creamed sugar in the center, the kind somebody continues to make today, though not sold at every counter. One in the mouth would declare Sunday night, and each week when we had gone as a family to share dinner with my grandparents. Me. Brother, three
Trust In my first weeks of motherhood –a butchered belly busy reassembling its hip-wide slice,drenched in the effluvia of two,heavy, wet breasts needed and kneaded and needed,sullen, sleepless, alone with this vague, clinging little life,this six then eight then ten pound parasite,too heavy for my ruined body to lift –I was told to trust my
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“What do you think of this painting by Manet?” I’m studying vibrant green stems visible through a cylindrical glass vase filled with luminous water. The stems are surmounted by a colorful bouquet of varying blooms on an almost grey background of oil paint tinted with lavender. The water seems to reflect an imagined late afternoon
