After the funeral the husband sat on a bench near the cemetery, folding and unfolding a slip of paper he’d found. He watched squirrels and waited. He considered sleeping on the ground, waiting for the grass to grow and cover him, but the only thing he really wanted to do was go home, so he …
I invite you to join the five and a half million people, including those in Greenland and the Faroe Islands, who speak Danish. It’s not that complicated—you don’t even have to conjugate verbs according to person, let alone gender—but it can be difficult to learn since the ethnic Danish population doesn’t expect foreigners to learn …
I return to the room for a long time each time for a long time and each time you are there, often unfolding my stomach. In this way, my cheek swelled to a door and shortly after, it opened.
The beautiful blue attendant I sneak closely at her face Her calm hems Everything put together No wonder we can fly How far up? Even the sky ends At certain velocities the film breaks The other side refulgent against black black The way is this way guided in blue The gnats and …
We arrived in crowds, and I said I have already seen this. The crowds made little homes at the tops of buildings that sagged and the crowds made ready for winter and hoped for the old water in the canals to harden the boats and the trash which I …
The tram conductors will strike tomorrow— Efren buttoned the top of his coat and adjusted his scarf. With old men it is always politics or the past, and usually they are the same. The too-loud discussions closed as the door closed in the bar behind him. He crossed to the other side of the canal. …
48 miles northwest In January of 2005 a mudslide covered the beachside town of La Conchita. Known as punta until 1925, it was founded in the late 19th century by men working on the South Pacific Railroad. The landslide destroyed thirty-six of one hundred sixty homes. Ten people died. The railroad still a vein running …
I’m all confused. What if she hadn’t gone to Emergency that last time? She didn’t want to go. I told her she had to. “Listen, you’re sick. You can’t stay at home. We can’t chance it. You have what seems like pneumonia again. After four times in two years, I can recognize the signs. You’ve …
Like the cramped sushi bar I found in Kyoto packed with friendly businessmen and laughing smokers, and the independent Tokyo record store I found filled with collectible blues and jazz, I stumbled on Jazz In Rokudenashi by accident. It was a jazu kissa on a brick side street in Kyoto’s historic Gion-Shijō district. Jazu kissa …
The border hasn’t always existed. It was put there for complex geo-historic and political reasons so long ago that no-one knows much about them now. I live right next to the border, which is a line drawn in the dirt. That is also true of my home, which is a series of straight lines, bisecting …