Levee workers, Plaquemines parish, Louisiana Fourteen Negroes wheel barrows along narrow planks laid over mud. They build a levee to prevent flooding of land they’ll never own. Fearing bites of cottonmouths, copperheads, and diamondbacks, they sweat in humid bayou heat. Arrayed along a nearby ridge, four white overseers look on in the shadow of a […]
I sip on my coffee and scan over emails: doesn’t apply, not me, junk, I have a meeting with the Colonel today. The Marines’ voices bounce off the walls with excitement as they chug Rip-It energy drinks, the unofficial sponsor of war. When I ask where they get neverending cases of the eight-ounce cans of […]
“We’d be in more danger driving down the 101, Amanda,” Brandon says as we sit on the New York D train. “Statistically, you are literally one thousand times more likely to die in a Volvo after drinking half a glass of chardonnay.” As he talks, the subway hurtles into Brooklyn. Warm and oxygenless air presses […]
Since you always wanted to know. Since you’ve been asking me ever since I moved here. I had lost my job and she had lost her mother. We were great at losing things. She asked her therapist, how could we lose all these beautiful things in a small world? Where do they go if we […]
glassfoot ++++++++++three a.m. thirsty and crawling ++++++++++chemo-induced miracle to be endured because ++++++++++(infusion clinic joke) the alternative is +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++glassfoot ++++++++++worse than fire ants worse than shoes full of shards ++++++++++fingernails falling off pulling away one by two afraid ++++++++++what’s in the beds they leave glassfoot ++++++++++behind sitting on skeleton sharp without my cushion ++++++++++once I […]
I dig my fingers into the pockets of my jacket and tilt my face towards the sun. The sharp wind of fall stings my cheeks. I want to drink in the spaciousness of this place, disappear into the rust red canyon, become the shadows dancing on painted rock. Behind me, there are voices belonging to […]
Nineties Girlhood No one ever praised me for being smart, only for being good. Good meant pretty and quiet, pressed like a flower in the middle of a bell curve. The first time I thought about becoming an adult had nothing to do with ambition but with a yearning to be beautiful. Baywatch was playing […]
Pack sackcloth and ashes in your carry-on. Bring pens, your toothbrush, a good skirt, and a magazine you will not read. At the terminal, do not flinch at his diminishment. You are not strong enough to support the weight of his grief. You will support it. Accept tasks before coffee, urgencies colliding, lists so long […]
One month alone, and Jesse was still getting used to things. He was filling a saucepan for tea—Anna hadn’t let him take the kettle—and when he touched the stove and the faucet at the same time, he got a jolt up his arm. His arm jerked back and the saucepan flew off the stove and […]
In July 2016, I had the opportunity to talk with Donald Strauss, writer and founder of the Master’s of Arts in Urban Sustainability program at Antioch University Los Angeles. Don is also an urban cyclist who wrote a dissertation–he calls it a memoir manifesto–on how cycling culture has changed Los Angeles. He is an urban sustainability […]
Leaves fluttering down on the grave in the fall, and her ashes. And I’m lying, it wasn’t fall, it was February. But the leaves were real. And it felt like she was supposed to die in the fall. Maybe I read that in a book, saw it in a movie. A girl who goes on […]
Douglas Unger has published four novels and a collection of stories, including Leaving the Land, which won the Society of Midland Authors Award for best fiction, a citation from the PEN Ernest Hemingway award, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and Robert F. Kennedy awards. His fourth novel, Voices from Silence, was an “experts recommend selection” of […]
In early July, my editor-in-chief emailed me with the good news that Maggie Nelson had agreed to be interviewed for Lunch Ticket. I accepted the task of interviewing her with some degree of trepidation, in part due to her vast accomplishments. She is the author of nine books, including the winner of the National Book […]
I want to be the chicken in the front seat of that Cadillac driving down Route 11. The chicken that reaches for the steering wheel when there’s another chicken in the road. The chicken that changes a flat tire and the chicken that doesn’t get beat up for loving other chickens. I want to be […]
When I get home from my morning run, there are two police officers hanging around my driveway. They look like babies, plump skin and short bangs under their caps. Barely in their twenties. They stand under our ancient weeping cherry tree, and scant snowflakes flutter down between the tired skeleton branches. It’s not cold enough […]
Sarah Van Arsdale’s deft, sympathetic portraits remind us that we are not alone in our struggle to be seen, recognized, and yes, even loved. She is a writer who is deeply engaged with questions of who we are and what we owe each other. Her clarity and precision immerse the reader in a world where […]
Women gathered round the float like the waters of the night— nurses, pirates, schoolgirls in plaid—and they lifted shirts to necks and their breasts bobbed up and down. Beads of prayer fell upon them and hit their heads and throats and hearts. The women dropped to their knees to collect them—holy objects on sullied ground— […]
I imagine my father as a small boy, sitting on stone steps. Chin in hand, he glares at the dry towel and swim trunks he’s thrown beside him. The façade of the Hayward Plunge, a public swimming pool near his Oakland, California home, stands in harsh rebuke. How dare you, it seems to say, Chinese […]
The child sits by an open window, watches rain bounce off red clay while Rufous-sided towhees wait out the storm, grip tangled limbs of azaleas. She hears wind tear through leaves, smells rain as it pounds the earth. ++++++++++Slowly, she picks up scissors, cuts off each finger from her only doll. The child talks to […]
Before I was confirmed into the Catholic Church, I was reprimanded by a Buddhist monk in a forest thick with mosquitos. My khaki pants stuck to my legs and my collared shirt clung to my damp neck. The hijab I had worn earlier that day was still in the car along with five or six […]
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