A child’s first smile, its mountain- bitterness and sweetness, its ends— not easily—extend and nurse the ocean’s anarchy. He is well—invincibly—his soothed lips toy with names and stitch a rainbow suture, his unlimited awareness of appearances. Stirred, the subsoil paws— the snail mouth flows and hastens— tuning lightly in amazement, in my eyes this Atlas […]
The seed of the flower of death, as small as a foxglove aphid, plants itself in the loam of birth to wind its roots and piercing stalk through the lattice of our organs until there’s no space left to burrow. It’s only then that the bud bursts our skin, to begin to unfurl its dark […]
Yesterday at the swim club in Berkeley, two women about my age were sitting in the hot tub, giggling about adventures on beaches along the opposite coast. I joined them. When they asked about my teenage memories of the same, I hesitated. I don’t know them except as our paths cross at the pool. I […]
