The Mandarin in Aunty Li’s new American neighborhood came in a disordered mélange of dialects. Though she’d learned to find comfort in it, she hadn’t heard a quick tongue carry her childhood town’s flavor of northern China in a while.
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I liked the cover because there was a sexy man on it and I’m easy to manipulate, so I brought it to the register and paid a dollar. In the sun, I opened the book and found an inscription: To Russel, with Love. John.
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Erin says I’m supposed to find us a house that looks like the one we’re already in: a Dutch Colonial with arched doorways, a staircase wider at the bottom than the top, and a too-small kitchen. She wants a fresh start in a familiar place.
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In the years I lived in that neighborhood, when I was twenty-seven and later twenty-eight, I visited the goldfish daily.
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My father once asked me, “Do you think white people know that fish have bones?” We were standing in the kitchen, watching the fish steam. Our hands were still scallion-y from the prep, but we wanted to see the glass lid turn cloudy.
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Some rogue cigarette flew into my eye. It was my second time ever in New York City. The ember sizzled. It was July. I screamed. Mia rushed to find a bathroom. We fled South Street Seaport and zigzagged the city’s shimmering expanse.
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he
shaves his head / goes on T / grows a beard / drops an octave / hardens up / slims down / strips down to his jeans, skinny jeans, to no effect, or none that he can tell, anyway, on the Object of His Admiration.
You might find this hard to believe, but as a kid I could talk to animals. They would seek me out and then ask me to speak on their behalf. It turns out animals have a ton of grievances. The squirrels were always going on about the parks department and their constant tree removal.
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The woman on the line is explaining how to call Angels, not like on the phone, but how to manifest one, right where you are, right now. I am trying to remember this woman’s name, because I know her, and pretty well too.
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Your heart, a simulation within a simulation within a simulation. Your hands unpacking shopping bags as they’re meant to. The tablecloth always plastic, always stained, always waiting. The sigh you breathe before you begin.
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The leaves fell late that autumn, and Sheila and Harold fought over who would have to rake.
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A mixed-race man has just learned that his mother is cancer free. She couldn’t say more because she was tired, and the reception is bad where he’s at, a cabin in the forest, Northern California.
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Somebody’s been stealing Mom’s bike. Her wheels, she likes to call it. The first time she left it on the side deck, which is visible from the street. Unfortunate, but preventable, I thought.
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Our tap water usually tastes like hedgehog, except in the spring when it tastes like snake. Today our neighbor’s Jack Russell jumps into the well, so it tastes like wet dog.
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I was in my twenties, wandering through downtown Philly in a tight skirt and tall boots. I had a baggie in my sock. The guy at the door didn’t check my purse after all. Just glanced at my ID and waved me inside.
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There aren’t flowers in Darnell’s yard, just big rocks. He unlocks the door and says, “Take off your shoes.” I do as I’m told.
I’m wearing Vans. White Girl Shoes.
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They tend to his body first. They are gagging but try to hide it out of respect for the astronaut’s feelings. They clean him, they comfort him, and they bring him back down into the embrace of gravity.
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I went home to Levittown, and there I found my best friend waiting for me, no older than when I left her twenty years ago. I said, Wow, you look the same as the day I left you. No. No. No, she said. You!
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You only saw the half of it. You can only see so much in that white baptism of light. You, centered in the theater. Te audience: rows of heads, knuckles in the dark.
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There’s a window on the kitchen door that opens into Mother’s soul.
Sundays in Lahore are a lazy business. I roll out of bed by 1 pm; the heat has already baked my exposed skin. The cup of tea and a piece of fried naan, both warmed perfectly, are already on my table.
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