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Plum I notice her purple nails  maybe aubergine, not dark enough  to be eggplant.  The color of lavender-soaked fig. We spend our time together cleaning other people’s houses,  rooms with violet walls that, if they could speak, would confess  all the times I’ve wanted to beg for her.  I want to tell her  she is the […]

My grandmother was a great cook. Because of that, a crumple of tinfoil in the freezer holds the last thing I have from her hands. Her cheese borag recipe: She stopped putting parsley in them when my dad stopped  liking green—one of those sacred traditions that only changes for youngest sons; one of those simple […]

A syrupy sap that falls as your last attempt to break your knees and branch out Buds of warm teeth sprout and stick to your cracked lips Stuck in the sugar; sap gathers and melts- Over the crest of flesh.  Water flows and streams under eyelids creased.  Under harsh vowel sounds jammed in whispers.  Under […]

DEATH IN MASQUERADE I remember my aunt who lives in the Crown’s yard. Yes, that aunt—the dilettante of good manners, whose words make God’s brain careen in his skull. She is the poison in the antidote. She is death— death in masquerade. She is a relentless wraith, feeding on that which she does not possess, […]

My poem that I translated from Persian to English, written on the margins of Fernando Pessoa’s“Manipulations of Sensibility” in his book, Always Astonished: Night (شب) My heart slowly beats against the night The alleys The trees Silent. My eyes can comprehend the darkness But, I’m free And in love with the night… قلبم برابر شب می تپد کوچه ها درخت ها […]

Birds Even though oil Is said to be black gold It still spreads death Brilliantly, efficiently  Over, through, and across The waves Defying the wind Defying mother birds’  Begging. We 17 people, With very little in common Set up our 3 cleaning stations  Exactly as we did yesterday  Hoping to save, A few. Sleepless  Frederick […]

Your father almost clips the puppies starting the motor on the outboard. They’re playing in the shallow water near where we moored for the afternoon but it’s October, and it’s time to go and your father was born with little patience for the weak. Just about 11 months ago your brother overdosed and died but […]

An Israeli pawnbroker on the Sunset Strip recalls you.Begging for three dollars to buy a slice of pizza.You made him so sad. Says he almost started crying.Remember when you were selling clumps of your hair on eBay?An extracted molar of yours reached one hundred fifty dollars.That tooth was pulled from the listings.eBay restricts the sale […]

I dove deep beneath the creekTo get the pollen off my cheeks.I got caught up in the currentLet the river take my feet;She dumped me in the oceanThen left me there to flounder.In an attempt to ditch the beesI went swimming with the sharks.I dove deep beneath the swellsIn an attempt to find a shell […]

Treat dreams like reality,  so they say, so they say  So, I have these dreams,  So, I have visions, wants,  wanton needs to do it all right,  flush apparitions of a better way,  a better world – to heal,  to bleed out all  that sticky, hot lava swishing inside  a rope master’s chalice  I glance […]