Dawn calls the haenyo. They return to the shore, the soles of their feet worn smooth. They listen for the ripples of pearls and urchins, sing the sun from darkness…
In painting my memories, I turn them into fortune-telling cards—my own deck of cards, for my own type of reading…
I stand with my back to the bus shelter, my coat hunched over my shoulder just an inch more so my nape won’t be exposed.
and I know you will not listen, you are like the cupboard,
but please forgive, yet again, my shredding, indefinite removal…
When I am three years old, I feel the burn of a cigarette on my arm…
In summer, Gram lazily waves at me with the flyswatter while Gramp chain-smokes Swisher Sweets in his underwear, wrestling always playing on the heavy wooden-entombed TV…
3:48am Sleepless. Not just for a string of nights, but for several months. Is this what dying feels like?
The anarchists must be somewhere says the orange man in the sun hat…
My niece clutches the kitchen doorjamb, her brown eyes wide. Her face is streaked with something dark—mud, dirt, ash. Her thin hair is flyaway, thin, uncombed. “There’s monsters in the bushes…”
I’ve found you Imposter Erect against the araceae backdrop Stealing your neighbour’s hue…
My mother moved in with me once icicles began to form like claws on my fingertips…
My earth mother told me to rub cocoa butter on my gray winter legs, and never fake bake with UV rays…
Tap into your Southern blood and blame Obama: A black president. A black nerd president. Anything is possible. These days, alien-space-Vikings seem as unreal as the Middle Passage…
This is a story about a pair of red ankle-strap shoes. High heels, of course, high heels that give the longest legs to even the shortest of girls—in this case, an Italian girl who stood just a little short of five feet tall, in the Jersey City of 1942…
Frankie and I protect our town, on the scoreboard and at the town fair, still wearing our jerseys, proud of our colors…
Tonight she’s in a park, sprawled out on her back under the shelter of a scratched-up willow tree…
My work is a reflection of past cultures, distorted by a mirror of aged antiquity, seen through a haze of modern neon lights…
The first time Henry left a purple bruise, I sent a message to the velvet merchant. His hands, the king’s, had touched me tenderly at the start, although his fingers were always rough…
Mohsin Hamid is the author of three novels: Moth Smoke, a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award; The Reluctant Fundamentalist, a New York Times bestseller that was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and adapted for film; and, most recently, How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia…
Harrowgate is a decided break from the dominant genre trends, and as such, Maruyama is modernizing a classic form and re-introducing it to a whole new generation of horror readers…
Backed up to our favorite piece of wall, we’re at Cedars the week before it closes and my friend says she’s been coming down since her bartender boyfriend snuck her in. So many Saturday nights of garage bands and traveling shows, lights and that sound that rattles the ribcage…
I thought of my mother as I waited for the museum’s copier to do its work. I watched the green light scan across my retinas and remembered leaning into her, folding myself small into the space between her chin and her lap, feeling the raspy rumble of her voice as I stared into the fire until my eyes swam with spots…
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