The earth, your mother, says— you ask her. No, you. Say we go to Mexico, Oaxaca for example where they make chocolate sacred, bake sweet bread for the dead, your mother wants some. The remembered ones are fed. Margaret Young grew up in Oberlin, Ohio and studied at Yale and University of California, Davis. She …
an envelope enclosing a letter, bread spore poised to proliferate upon clean surfaces of lukewarm milk and water— Dried sprig of sage or lavender, evergreen whose scented spikes forever line my cabinets and drawers— Garter stitch, you snake through my ragged hemlines; your name felts my wet lashes. Dark-orbed iris, your aperture closes and widens. …
When, unfortunately, I tell my date I know some Spanish, she says, “I’m a native speaker.” I hide my big mouth with a glass of water. She says, “Say something.” “¿Es una examen?” I ask. “Yes, it is a test, basically,” she answers. I say, “It’s only our first date— are we ready to speak …
Hiram’s hand disappeared in the engine of his son’s Corvette and came out without its thumb. At first he looked at us and grinned the way he always did when something bad needed done. Then he ordered Claude to slam the hood and get the hell to town. He shoved me in, took off his …
There are words that can be said simpler than thunder, microscopic jellyfish words, how they bloom like winter berry, coming from nothing, how sudden their lightning, how sure and biting the cloud that comes from the mouths of people no longer in love—their words which have become gesture, movements in a dance they are learning—which …
Hands like ghost stories, hands like creosote, sleep-walking hands, hands of fruit salesmen, of dentists, hands like watermelon seeds, all tendril and taste bud, the gloved hands of surgeons as they make the first cut. Hands like whispers and hands like mirrors, hands releasing fireflies or floating in formaldehyde, hands kneading the shortbread, hands beating …
“Flies don’t enter a closed mouth” —a saying, translated by Gloria Anzaldúa My wife Mary and I are making tortillas. She taught herself and wants to teach me. I work dough with the rolling pin, searching for the right balance of force and repetition. The two Spanish words Mary heard from her mother: dejáme and …
stalks of grass have swallowed all there is of green and sing it we have names for each plant whisper plantain and oatstraw lupen an ode to light the way light enters surfaces clay, paint, water, skin and shines back at itself I found a four-leaf clover once and you saved it like you saved …