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In Michelle Whittaker’s debut collection, Surge, we begin in the after. After what is not as important as the life lived after trauma—an afterlife. Though we arrive having already crossed this border safe and sound, an epigraph from Susan Sontag reminds us that we’re still dual citizens: passport carriers from “the kingdom of the well” […]
The Clay of Time has Grown Soft The clay of time has grown soft. The kneading of sunset after sunset has made it rise. A tiny grain of sand has suddenly split open in a dream to dispel a mystery, and only the owl weeps from a silver lock of tangled hair. The dead have […]
(All frags reported herein are genuine, heard in Oak Bluffs, a town on an island off the coast of Massachusetts, USA, captured here for this publication only) Nothing like a good long walk, exercise and meditation in one. Two birds with one stone, though I hate that image. Who throws stones at birds? Cavemen and […]
Equipped with our net, bucket, raw chicken and roll of string, we trekked from the ragged graveled patch where we had parked the van. Glassy-skinned frogs hidden in the thick marsh grass croaked in a languid manner; they paused when we were near and resumed their song after we passed. All was still dark when […]
As Dr. Christine Blasey Ford testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee, I’m hugging a mammogram machine. “Okay, we’ll take four pictures on the right, and two on the left,” says the bubbly tech with the blond bangs. “Oops! I mean, four on the left, two on the right. Sorry! Haven’t had my coffee yet.” It’s […]
Thick wool hiking socks, check. Eight pairs of underwear, check. Windbreaker, check. Like many overachieving daughters of single mothers, I’m a planner. I’m packing for a late-autumn trip to Utah. There, I’ll meet a sister I didn’t know I had until two months ago. The over-planning and packing help contain my excitement at meeting my […]
In 1973, the Squirrel Cage was just another scummy go-go bar on a street filled with businesses that paired well with scummy go-go bars. It’s gone now, of course; replaced by an above ground pool company—almost an elbow-to-the-ribs attempt at baptismal humor. The Squirrel Cage sat at the crossroads of Austin Highway and Walzem Road […]
At the intersection of the six-lane highway I live on in Washington, DC, I waited for the light to turn green and for the little white man to appear above the numbers—starting at twenty-six—counting down how long I had to cross the street. I looked carefully to make sure no cars were going to make […]
you have to learn to live with emptiness my mother told me I drank water when I was hungry I drank water the way people hustle onto trains rushing to another city the rain begins in one window but always finds its way to all the others your dog scratches at the white couch I […]
Colorful, steaming bowls of dhal (lentils) and hot buttered chapatis (thin, circular bread cooked on a griddle). This is what we ate most of the time, out of necessity, growing up in provincial England in the early 1970s. My parents would comment from time to time, that the goreh (white people) surrounding us wasted so […]
Dorothy Chan is the author of Revenge of the Asian Woman (Diode Editions, Forthcoming March 2019), Attack of the Fifty-Foot Centerfold (Spork Press, 2018), and the chapbook Chinatown Sonnets (New Delta Review, 2017). She is the Editor of The Southeast Review. Visit her website at dorothypoetry.com. 10 Questions for Dorothy Chan: 1. What’s the most recent thing you’ve written? I’m currently working on my […]
I sit at the keyboard rapidly typing, as my student and I are brainstorming for his college essay. My fingers get tripped up on the simple words. I type “adn” for “and”. In the next sentence, “gaol” for “goal”. While reading it over, I catch my mistakes. “I feel like I’m becoming dyslexic in my […]
We’ll keep you fed with great new writing, insightful interviews, and thought-provoking art, and promise with all our hearts never to share your info with anyone else.