Category: articles
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Tinghir
You were born in the mellah Made your feet leather on hot rocks made way for boys with donkeys ever the scrambler Your mother didn’t know you much seventh of twelve, always dashing off. While she did someone else’s washing, you and your twin brother switched places on a dare, then back again “Do…
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Homage to H.D.
I pound on the hermetic door. An echo, heavy as lead, rolls away. I knock again and the ghost of your voice floats out from under it, brushing my face, light as a spider web, light as a mother’s hand out of Ancient Greece. —My angels are my angels. I feel this,…
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DOÑA QUIXOTE
Two riders breached her low, eternal wall of books. Tiny, no bigger than the thumb that turns pages. One was long, lean, the small one meant comic relief, she knew. She’s numb to anything but words on paper. Her eyes watch. She knows, perfectly well, they’re unreal. Her…
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6424 Avenue Z
Before she died, Grandma made me promise that I’d take care of her house. How could I say no? She was the only person in this whole world who didn’t look at me and see a good for nothing loser. Mama didn’t even tell me who my daddy was before she up and…
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Glosa on Romance Languages
AL MARGEN DE MALLARMÉ AIRE DE MAR La chair est triste, helas, et j’ai lu tous les livres Ah, la carne no es triste, no lei todo libro. Jamas se me hartarán los ojos ni las manos. Tan enorme es la hora que yo no la cailibro. …
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A Matter of Imaginary Space
I was asleep the very first time I crossed an international border. Sometime between the thirteen hours of existing in a plane, I had gone past the Atlantic Ocean and into Europe, landing in France on a foggy and uncertain morning. I was rushed out of an airplane into the sterile no-land of…
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OLD MARILYN DOWN ON CEDAR STREET
Folks used to razz me about it, but we’ve all gotten old and I don’t think fertility is what it was before the mill went down and the school closed and folks called me Sterile Marilyn behind my back. It never got to me. Back in those days, lots of gals here wore their kids…
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BOB OVER ON 2ND STREET USED TO BE A PASTOR
I parroted the company line until one Sunday I finally told them the truth about me. My experience of the Divine Christ. I’d been in such darkness. Unimaginable in its gravity. Advisors encouraged me to pray and embrace the answer when it came, so I kept praying but got nothing. Nothing. Finally, I prayed, I’ll…
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MONA, WHO VOLUNTEERS DOWN AT WOMEN’S CRISIS
I sensed a shadow in the living room when I toured the place, so knew it was possible when I signed the lease. And I had also seen it in meditation. I moved in anyway. Rentals are hard to find, and I feared people would start talking again if I spoke about what…
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JERRY, WHO WORKS OVER AT SCOOBY’S TIRES
Years ago a fortune teller told me they’d come. I was at Garibaldi Days, drunk and with a woman who believed in all that kind of stuff. She did a lot of those woo-woo meditation things; I was crazy for her. Then she went off to one of those naked retreat places and wrote me…
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building blocks
You are building blocks, my son. High and even hard to see where it reaches puff of clouds. You are looking far -far beyond that silver sparkle when the jumping fish applauds. I have you one more year. Carried in my heart with crown, scepter, cape and much more gear. I celebrate you with no…
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Art and Obedience
Now that 2021 is nearly halfway through, accountability might just become the word of the year. It pops up in all kinds of commentary about policing and the behavior of our elected officials. “There is no ‘healing’ from this without accountability,” tweeted Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in the days following the Capitol riot. I myself bristle…