A Familiar Frottoir

A Familiar Frottoir

A different kind of sunlight that day—the day Bisque sat out on the stoop, shucking pistachios and the gleam of the air settled in on his face, casting half a shadow, a shadow full of cracked thoughts and known uncertainties. The day itself sounded like a broken...
Ash Wednesday at Grand Central Station

Ash Wednesday at Grand Central Station

Photo by Jakub Hałun, CC BY-NC 2.0 DEED The comparison began when the doctors recommended Mike’s mom take experimental drugs to defeat her disease. At the time Mike had been reading about the eastern front during World War Two. So, after the drugs failed, it seemed...
Of Land and Of Water

Of Land and Of Water

Photo by kashishArtandGallery / shutterstock For as long as I can remember, my mother had wanted to mother a son. She dressed me in blue every chance she got. Even before I was expected, she bought baby boy clothes off thelas around Tariq Road and Hyderi. She could...
Lanternfly

Lanternfly

Photo by Ritu Manoj Jethani / Shutterstock.com There is no love for the lanternfly. The profligate planthopper, the habitual hitchhiker, who arrived, unbidden, from across the tempest-tost sea. A shipping container stowaway, the color of a dirty old newspaper. The...
Allowed in the Temple

Allowed in the Temple

After “Dear Arecelus” by Patrick Royal I wish I had thought of stealing literary fruitfrom dead writers’ houses, like plums, and slurpingat its meat and sweetness to expose their pits;instead, I spend an hour at Carousel Barin New Orleans nursing one glasswith ghosts...
Question of Survival

Question of Survival

The sun sets over an endless sea, flashing a mysterious green, while a purple squall stomps on the horizon. I stand in the middle of a sandy island the size of a graveyard, and just as flat. This is exactly what I want after the last ten months—time alone on a...