essays | fiction | poetry | photography | art
How many fried eggs do I have to eat to heal these broken bones?
I am a student in a creative writing programme, a mature student, from a professional background as an epidemiologist. Amongst ourselves, we students don’t really talk about ‘creativity’. We talk a lot about craft and sometimes we talk about ourselves and the way in which how we feel affects our writing. But rarely about ‘creativity’…
I stood under the alligator juniper that shaded my tent in the oak woods. Effie squatted between my feet. In The Maltese Falcon, Sam Spade called his receptionist Effie. But the Effie at my feet was no lady. I called her F. E. Cottontail in my journals. Cottontails are coprophagous – literally, Fecal Eating. That…
last night i carved open
a tree in the yard and
at the centre of the
trunk was a small
knife
The trees are prettier this time of year, limp—
gowned in sweet milk stuck to our tongues.
In early October 2020, my partner Greg and I drove at sunrise to Zion National Park in southern Utah. On the way I swigged coffee and snapped photos of sandstone cliffs dip-dyed red by the sun. They dwarfed what I’d imagined while planning our pandemic-adapted vacation – a national park tour via road trip, starting…
It was the temperamental radio,
the cats with full bellies,
the hilarious stench of fuel
“You made it, Grandma!” I said as I gave her a hug. The gold tassel swished in my face from the graduation cap I hadn’t removed yet. “I’ve been to all your graduations, Iha,” she replied in a huff, “And, I’ll be at the next one.” I gripped her hand as she steadied herself with…
I try bleaching the sun
using liquid soda crystals
but the sky turns yellow too
breathe and /hold
lungs and belly
moon balloon full
The weeks that followed exploded into a patriotic frenzy. Red, white, and blue dotted every neighborhood – even our own. Old Navy’s Fourth of July T-shirts reemerged for the last few weeks of September. Dad brought home a flag – taller than me – which I demanded be hung by the front door, just like…
the slow inflections of the wind
where rivers run like scars.
The moon hangs quietly
in the blackened air, halved and emptied, decaying since dusk
Porridge 