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a “figure of man and woman all together” —Vocabulario de la lengua tagala, 1613 mornings, I braid wet black hair quick & taut after bathing. the health of flock & herds depends on the rain.I’ve met those wooden figures, both male & female sleepy in granaries. say, water—say loving words like fish, fruit, fowl.my body …

REPUBLIC OF GHANA / REPUBLIQUE DU GHANAPassport / Passeport Type/ Type Code/Code Passport No. / Passeport No. Surname/NomAmoah — my mother’s maternal surname means pit, hole, or trench. The pronunciation of the name is akin to mmoa — meaning animals. Which animal? An ant? An antelope? A buffoon? A bat? Mmoa also means to fold. …

When I opened the door, Pam winced. She saw my red-veined eyes and assumed the tears were for her. “I’m so sorry to be putting you through this,” she said, pulling me into a hug. I was too embarrassed to correct her. I did grieve for Pam—I’m not a monster—but I hadn’t been crying about …

Far out at sea, a small wooden fishing boat thrashes in a fierce storm. Lightning streaks across the sky and rain pounds. Waves crash over the boat’s bow and it capsizes, tossing a tiny human-like creature made of red yarn overboard. He’s cast ashore, sea-drenched. I lean forward, game controller in hand, watching a fuzzy-toothed …

I think of little Leah who stumbles offthe camp bus at pick-up, beelines to the buzzypsychic’s table set up on the terrifying sidewalkof New York City. Our first reaction, Let’s leavethis stranger alone . . . but her solid curiositya sock finding a freezing foot, or water spillingon salt, something extraordinary because it isnecessary, sincere …

a girl walks into her mother’s closet & says she’s bisexual & the mother hands her a shirt to fold & says you won’t feel that way in ten years & the girl walks into her boyfriend’s arms & says she likes girls & the boy laughs & hands her his cock & the girl …

Everyone said that she should be grateful he’d married her, and the landowner knew it to be true. After all, not only had her family been poverty-ridden for generations, they also had a reputation for being addle-brained. If it had been up to him, wealthy zamindar that he was, he’d never have deigned to even …

question:how else to erupthow else to churn through daily sickness how else to carry what is not minehow else to lean in closer to feel the molting heat how else to get burnedhow else to watch the grass grow back how else to plod like fire ox how else to chew cudhow else to eat …

The world ends on a Wednesday. You’re nearly through your status report. One more sentence explaining the Gantt chart you spent two hours massaging into place, and then your mid-week review would’ve been done. That chart was like a seed you’d nestled tenderly in the earth, positioned just so beneath a beam of sunlight, and …

Dear Reader, Sometimes I come dangerously close to believing some kind of Evil—the mandate of “take take take”—has taken over this world once and for all. At such times, I start to wonder where I might find a nice cave to call my own, or perhaps a soft patch of sand suitable for head-burying. But …