[[bpstrwcotob]]
Braids and the Meaning of Life
As a child, I was in awe of girls with braids. Girls whose hair was set in strictures like Sunday sermons.
Before the I-5, My Father Was Mexican
While attending a conference in San Diego, I am cooped up in a hotel that is coincidentally on the same street as my paternal family’s first home in America.
Tide Pools
"Draw me a mermaid, Mommy." “Okay,” I answer my two-year old daughter. She watches me outline the figure in pencil on pink construction paper. The mermaid turns out to be feminine, unashamed of her bare breasts, and ready to swim in a dangerous ocean. I envy her.
Chaucer’s Wives Come Knocking
What did she have to be so boisterous about, I thought, furiously. She was fat and out of control, and it was easy to make fun of her. I wrote a mocking modern tale about a loud-mouthed woman in Los Angeles who sold real estate, like my mother did at the time. I got a good grade, and I proudly shared it with her. God forgive me.
Are You the One?
My first marriage ceremony was held in my mother’s apartment on 79th Street just east of Park Avenue in a pre-World War Two building with a doorman and canopy.
Still Standing
After over fifty years, Warren and I began corresponding—a term I use loosely, as Warren does not write. He does not speak. His IQ hovers below 20, and he does not know who I am.
Impermanence.
Her name escapes me now, but her face was unforgettable. The woman—I will call her Sarah—had half-inch fake eyelashes, sparkly pink lips, and her forehead, cheeks, and chin were plumped and plastered unnaturally smooth across the broad bones of her face.
Care Bear for Sale
I’m about to be mugged over a fucking Care Bear. Togetherness Bear. Don’t ask how it came to be in my possession. Okay, fine, go ahead.
The Skeletons Wash Their Hands Before Supper
When I was seven and you were five, you moved into my bedroom. They needed your room for the new baby. I don’t remember having any feelings about it—you spent all your time with me anyways. There was plenty of room for both of us.
Elegy as a Writing Instructor in State Prison
I want to know the god these men know, / pounded to life on the chapel piano.
Mardi Gras
“Mardi Gras… Isn’t that the most euphonious appellation?” I closed my eyes and pronounced each syllable slowly, showing off my English and French skill to my brother, Kevin.