Where is your father? He’s dead, Mommy. She sobs over the piece of frosted layer cake the memory care center has given her as a welcome celebration. She forks bites of chocolate and thick white buttercream into her…
Uranium Tailings #12, Elliot Lake, Ontario. I was searching for an image of mill tailings. Burtynsky, of course, I thought when I found it. The photograph shows black, barren trees, thin and broken like toothpicks that appear to be…
The flesh on his arms, like an overripe banana, peels as I drag my nails upward. Ribbons of crimson appear—thin, jagged trails up and down his skin. My brother doesn’t just yell—he shrieks. Not my older brother at all…
Two Thirds Terror, One Third Romance On vacations, my father encouraged me to keep travel diaries. These were less diaries than documents—drawings, descriptions, and artifacts recording our movements each travel day. You’ll treasure them when you’re older, he reasoned.…
Kayu Putih, Northeast Jakarta I wake up on New Year’s Day to a world underwater. Or at least it feels that way: the neighborhood has sunken overnight in an opaque brown liquid dotted with moving heads. Two women move…
I orbit in the wide sky over the Gulf of California. Every takeoff is the same, but I am always on alert for the one that will be different. In Bosnia or Boston. Panama or Palm Springs. On short…
Palladium, 1990 At the nightclub with my brothers Michael and Vinny, everything dissolves inside the eruption of sound and light. Whatever membrane that once held my place in the world now dematerializes in the collective rapture of the crowd.…
1A I slip into a crowded theater to feel close to people without being seen. My elbow just barely on the armrest, I watch the film color the room yellow then blue, each face in my peripheral blurred by…
I have been paying close attention to my baby’s mouth to see if he will inherit whatever it is that has allowed me the good fortune of straight teeth. No braces. No retainers. Just a slight overbite when I…
The water spilled over the rim, hissing on the stove, making a mess the way things do when no one is watching. I turned down the flame, wiped the counter, and cleaned what could be cleaned. The bubbles subsided.…
