Amuse-Bouche

Eleanor is outside on the porch screaming obscenities at the neighborhood. I know I should pull her back inside, but I choose instead to peer out the living room window, half my face shrouded by curtain, and watch everyone’s reactions. Eleanor is ninety-two so no one dares confront her or call the cops. All the neighbors just assume she’s gone senile and doesn’t know where she is or what she’s doing. But she knows. Everything Eleanor does is deliberate, and usually premeditated at that.

Two poems translated by A. Z. Foreman: The Heart’s Voice by Abraham Sutzkever and Night of the Fourth: A Remembrance by Victor Hugo.
The heart’s voice gave command: once more believe in that debased word “Justice”. Son of the lion, stand and war against your slavery. You must.

When a full orange moon shakes bats from its belly,
when the sky splits open like a busted suture
and pink babies fall into the cumulus cloud bank
above the field of zinnias behind your mother’s house,

You were born on a tropical winter’s day in 1931 , as generous in spirit

as the unexpected gift at an unexpected moment , like Mighty Mouse or dynamite

Come lie back now, breathe deep and take the gas—
It’s just your water breaking, not your bones.
You women you you never think to ask

I was the only one of my friends without a cassette player, except for Lily, whose father was the head of the Party’s neighborhood branch. Even if they had the money, he would have never allowed it, fearing that music from the West would poison her mind with capitalist ideas.

Grief invades

the thin columns of days. A phone

rings. Tree bark flakes

away. I become

salt on tongue, raw

The colorful balloons

above the baby’s head.

He reaches out

for his mother’s face.

Listen, my dog likes to stare
into mirrors. She’s not narcissistic—
she believes her reflection’s a captive
companion confined behind glass,
a trouble-free and safe friend

Thursday nights are always a little tense, but especially now, less than a week before Christmas. We are on edge; the clots of snow in the road, the family time, none of it helps. We meet in a classroom in the community center at 8pm. The rest of the building is dark, yawning shadows cast over our faces. It smells like paint and gym ball plastic.

Rx:

men’s daily multivitamin/one per day in the morning

Zoloft/100 mg per day in the morning, watch for signs of hypomania

Atenolol/50 mg per day, perhaps at night, for blood pressure

monthly massage membership: $60/one hour session, once a month

“When did you start climbing?” Evgeniy asked me while we lay in his bed after showering together. One of the things that kept me coming back to him was how he liked to clean up immediately after we were done. He did not linger in filth.
“Come with me next time I go,” I said instead of answering, taking on the active voice to combat the antisocial, post-coital placidity.

Isabel Yap is a Filipino writer of fiction and poetry. Her debut short story collection, Never Have I Ever (Small Beer Press, 2021), contains thirteen unique and extraordinary stories based on Filipino culture, history, traditions, legends, and mythology. Full of monsters, magic, and miracles, each story has its own touches of fantasy, horror, mystery, and/or hope that will keep readers enthralled.

Young Adult is a privilege. When you write for them you have to be hopeful because your audience still has a lot of living to do. When a kid reads my work I feel lucky that they read my words, that they entered a small world I created for a little bit.

I write for children and young adults because I see in them the greatest capacity for change. And that’s what we need in this country and in this world. We need informed youth who can take action that will build better communities. The level of ignorance in today’s society is astounding, and a lot of that has to do with what we had—or did not have—available to us to learn from when we were growing up.