Photo: Picker H/Flickr
November in Xichang
There are cities one won’t see again. – Joseph Brodsky
I.
Only a bearded smile shows below a conical hat
turning men to rice…
Poetry
Photo: Brian Ainsworth/Flickr Borderland (2) Moored in an estuary of chestnut trees is the main building – a mother ship. The sharp-eyed gaze eventually settles, studying the faça…
Photo: M. Maggs/Pixabay La bona educació L’estiu que complia set anys li van regalar un estoig de fusta amb un llapis i una goma. El llapis, perquè en rosegués la mina fins a tro…
Photo: Simon Q/Flickr A patch of sunlight on the wall thin shadows like worn nets or the snagged stockings of a voracious lover impair that patch. Our shoes tap the marble stairs down-down. T…
PHOTO: Scott Webb/Unsplash * Tulips and their capricious labia, their indecent appeal. The absolute shamelessness of the flowers, but also the sinlessness. The lushness of the earth, as before the…
PHOTO: Florian Wehde / Unsplash you gave me a black silk chicken hoping I’d eat it and get better you gave me a black silk chicken because I’ve been unwell I cooked up the black silk chicken dev…
Lorie Shaull, “Stolperstein” / Flickr The story begins like this. No. It does not. There is no story. Or, they shoveled a load of speed and shuddered toward the coast. Saltpans. Sparse groupings of p…
View of the Kukupalong refugee camp near Cox’s Bazaar, Bangladesh. / PHOTO: Russell Watkins / UK Department of International Development “I can be killed here in Bangladesh. My body can earn a p…
PHOTO: Ruslan Bardash/Unsplash The meaty gweipo complete slippery scolds assailant aplenty The meaty miasma of North Point’s postcard avenues, where Big-Leaf Fig bases are p…
PHOTO: Jmoritz320/Pixabay But a bowl of rice with soy sauce was your breakfast yesterday. Colors of foods varied as fate played out with this resemblance on the table – Clay-pot sauce poured into…
Prelapsarian Bloom: One Day One Life, thread on kite, LED light. Photo courtesy of the author. [untitled] a day a life, between death and birth, under the moon, two…
PHOTO: Florian Wehde/Unsplash Tasting Karma Does the doctor prefer eating an apple before he announces death? The doctor says: “Just so—sorry.” Or, he prefers studying an apple? …
Press Doorbell Please. PHOTO: Eddie Tay How I Impress Others with My Cantonese At a dim sum restaurant you’ll need to ask for la jiu jeong (chili sauce), la jiu yeow (chili oil), or dao ba…
PHOTO: Alice Cheung Dim Sum Cart Dim sum house in Mongkok, the crowded, traditional one with gleaming walls, red flowery carpet, you squeeze through waiters and eaters, tables and chandeliers to y…
PHOTO: Siriwan Leowratsamee/Unsplash Lamma Island Tofu-fa On the broken trail to Mot tat a field of white ginger lilies flags us down. We shrug off our packs. Huddled among ruin…
Rainy Afternoon Hong Kong 2018. PHOTO: Joan Pabona @kuochuqu #historyofthebees #gardenwall #blah #sowhat In 19__ I broke an expensive urn. Since then I have been breakin…
PHOTO: Joel Fulgencio/Unsplash Hong Kong and the Echo What do we know but that we face One another in this place? – W. B. Yeats, “Man and the Echo” HK. I loved my mountains, rivers, and tr…
Rohingya students reading The Blossom in the Community Rebuilding Centre education facility in Cox’s Bazaar refugee camp, October 2018. Photo courtesy of Mayyu Ali.Translator’s note:…
Crystal Z Campbell, Friends of Friends (Six Degrees of Separation), 4x6x72 inches, vintage collection of bacteria slides circa 1940s, steel, LED strips, automotive paint, plexiglas, 2013 dow…
PHOTO: Luca Iaconelli/Unsplash Watching the Moonrise Alone Watching the moonrise alone the silent moon is like the person watching They’re alone together No one utters a single wo…
PHOTO: SkitterPhoto/Pexels considering the Upstairs Lounge Fire We tipped our sticks to the gravel like the bent spines of men groveling beneath trunks of smoke to lure the barbed larvae…
Photo: Casliber/Wikimedia CommonsWe have been away from Jam Tree Gully – now, reapproaching the name not on the gate. Working the categories, the signs, we fear the raiders? Fifteen minutes into be…
Photo: Domeckopol/Pixabay 6 His under- wear white Armpits spotless and collar neat From Monday to Monday he is like that because the drainpipe carries off the rest. 12 Before me their fe…
Photo: Bash Fish/Unsplash 1 At what time must the birds lined up in gardens, trees, and cages sing? Look to the law. 2 Let’s appoint the village madman. Chief Justice on the Court of Appeals, with…
Photo: Michael Olsen/Unsplash[Carry my metaphor] Carry my metaphor; I touched the sea before waves deceived me. Carry my dream; I saw it all without opening eyes of salt. Carry my soul; I met deat…
