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Nothing will come of nothing,which holds true too for the meagerlapels we fashioned from piedand unblinking marigolds, holdstrue even for the snapdragonsyet unready for picking, the goldenraspberries, the wooden basinof straw somebody’d named Music.I looked at you; I thought good thoughts;we debated whether that raptorworlds away with its wingsoutspread was a hawk or a vulture.I …

At nine, māmā wound a leash around my tongue and tugged the meat loose until I spat out syllables, how a spooked dogwould let go of its marred bone. I ironed out my words, slept with a mantle on my tongue, and beat my mouth into submission. Inflections don’t exist in English, a single word …

it replies after I select the department Asian Studies in a dropdown tab, enter the experienceFilipino into the university course search engine.I make mediocre waves of it, I know that single grains of rice that settle far from their plated centre mass get forgotten about, left unspooned, uncelebrated, drowned by the end water of dishwashing …

Dear Su,Today I talked to a teen monk about our age. I wanted to find if there is escape from suffering in what he does: you know, wearing yellow robes, learning Pali chants, skipping dinner, no contact with girls and all. He didn’t know either, but he said the process needs to be carried on …

Dear Su,Funerals have become the only event in my country. Tiny rows of white flags stretch from one pole to the next like the sky’s teardrop strings. This is how we announce a funeral in the community. When the elements turn them yellow, people now let them be as if to mean they can’t do …

A shrug of limbs:gambrel symmetry:a hallway of parkway treesarch filling green middle of May thick:maple, elm, oak.But the ash borerand the city crews:whole blocks reducedto sap splinter chips.The crows black on the grey stainon the branchesat a distanceyammer warntoss syllables:two beats, three beatsfour beatsraw as frictionacross the parking lot.Like felt cut outs, like stencilslike watercolor …

are you my mother?you call a man instead of your mother/ it only makes you miss her more/she called you four times between the hours of nine and two/ perhaps it is better to tell a lie/insist you couldn’t/ hear her rings over the/ unforgiving/ tempo kept by the/ made up /band you said you …

Every M your dad writes comes out like the McDonald’s arches. No backbone on the left—just two camel humps. So every time he writes your name, you think of McDonald’s, and how you order the same thing every time you go there: a cheeseburger with just the meat, the cheese, and the bun. Plus a …

“We’re out the door, Jean,” Kyle said, setting two mugs in the sink and turning away. “Alright,” I said, tugging on the finger of my rubber glove. I could tell he’d been crying though God knows why. I was the one left here with a demented old man. “Don’t trouble yourself,” he said, letting the …

You knock; I open the door to let you in. You apologize, tell me it has started to rain, try to explain your lateness, but I tell you I don’t mind. I offer you a can of beer, and you say thanks, and then you hesitate, look at me, and I think about looking away, …