My grandmother says, Das Militär steckt in unserem Blut. My grandmother says, The military runs in our family. What is lost in translation is the word steckt. Hides, is stuck, is plugged. Somehow the military exists in our blood, lingering. The verb steckt suggests something active, positive or negative, but a presence nonetheless.
CategoryCreative writing
New York 1954
Mrs. Rudikoff had an unsettled and frightened look on her face when she left our apartment in Spanish Harlem that evening. She also appeared to be full of judgment; mostly towards how my brothers laughed instead of how they should have taken pity on her when she said she felt attacked. Also, she probably was judgmental because she knew when she would tell her daughter that there were 40 tiny mice running on the floor in the Manhattan complex her daughter would scream.
New Silences: Writing for Coronavirus
And indeed, I have noticed a biological metamorphosis; change my class to Reptilia, my superorder to Lepidosauria and so forth because washing has made my hands so damn dry. You become a reptile and the numbers start sounding reasonable and holy and something to worship. By the next day they mean nothing and we praise anew.
Five Essays in Miniature
I walked in on the dog in my room staring at himself in the mirror. His nose was right on the surface and he was just staring and doing nothing else. When he heard me come in the room, he looked around, appeared to be embarrassed, as did I.
The Lovers take Tea with and without Sugar
As they sipped the tea they decided to trust their guts, and let each other know when they were not comfortable. The liquid poured into their stomachs, sedating the unnecessary anger, and relieving a bit of the weight off the world. Maybe that would help. If only a little. Until then, together they would live, create, twirl, and scream. And realize that the world is finite, and tea gets cold. So it is better to sip slowly and gently. They turned to each other, flecks of light in each other’s eyes, and smiled.
Three Nightmares
A man stands in a train station. He wears a wide-brimmed hat and a long black coat; his hair—what little peeks out from beneath his hat; one suspects he is thinning—is dark, streaked with gray, and unkempt. It runs down the back of his neck, and even out over the collar of his shirt. His face is lined with age, but there is little hair on his cheeks: his grooming is impeccable. He stands within the sight of a great standing clock, but he does not look at it.
A Vesicle of Undifferentiated Substance
Looking deep inside the mirror, he thinks: I am wholly contained inside my skin. His image coats the surface of his eye. He presses his elbow into his side. He squeezes his fist and wrings out his bicep. His body, steaming, stands before him in the grey, sending signals: his image back and forth between him, grey, satiated. He stretches his lips, presses his cheeks into his eyelids and sends up a special kind of prayer. You beast. He strains to call forth his deathless name: Monster. Monster.
A Baby, Me, and the Tides
I know we were married, but that day itself has gone from me, recently. I had it until yesterday, or the day before. It was not a space I immediately noticed. I ran through my life, wondering what was missing, and noted at length that that day was gone. Sometimes it seems there is order to the washing away of my mind, but in truth it is sporadic. I hear a baby cry. I remember the birth of my daughter, all at once, her red face.