Jul 22
My California by Lee Herrick Here, an olive votive keeps the sunset lit,the Korean twenty-somethings talk about hyphens, graduate school and good pot. A group of four at a windowtable in Carpinteria discuss the quality of wines in Napa Valley versus Lodi. Here, in my California, the streets remember the Chicanopoet whose songs still bank …
Jul 21
When Night Fills With Premature Exits by Enzo Silon Surin Is there a place where black men can goto be beautiful? Is there light there? Touch? Is there comfort or room to raise their blacksons as anything other than a future asterisk, at risk to be asteroid or rogue planet but notcomet—to be studded with …
Jul 20
Learning Arabic by Ruth Awad Suspended inthe Téléphériqueabove Harissa,I see our salt-whitelady reach for Beirut.Language is boththe cedar shadeand mountain road,the bay licking the heelsof Jounieh. My auntieteaches me the Arabicword for cat. MyAmerican tongueand bare legssay I’m Lebaneseonly in blood.She wants meto learn.If not for cables,we would dropto our deaths.If not for our blood,we’d …
Jul 19
The Good Life by Tracy K. Smith When some people talk about moneyThey speak as if it were a mysterious loverWho went out to buy milk and neverCame back, and it makes me nostalgicFor the years I lived on coffee and bread,Hungry all the time, walking to work on paydayLike a woman journeying for waterFrom …
Jul 18
A Small Needful Fact by Ross Gay Is that Eric Garner workedfor some time for the Parks and Rec.Horticultural Department, which means,perhaps, that with his very large hands,perhaps, in all likelihood,he put gently into the earthsome plants which, most likely,some of them, in all likelihood,continue to grow, continueto do what such plants do, like houseand …
