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There are no knives
on the man so thin the wind
whips his cargo pants around him like a dance
to which his bones aspire,
no flares, no smoke, no unmetaphorical fire
when the woman in the camouflage jog bra
jogs by whistling all the while:
survival is a style.
Emberling, amberman,
worshiper of was:
I asked the past
what I was meant to learn
and the past said—
Burn.
An air of old hotel about him: bitters and rye,
pornographers in penguin suits, glaucous Dover sole.
Derringer words—doff, peruse—
which he hardly needs to use, to use.
Morals as involved as baklava.
He brushes crumbs from his lapel as if he had one.
Death? Who knew the rube’s recessive treasures
better than he, who knew himself?
So he folded, a paragon of suave
aced at the end by galumphing luck.
Can you tell us about your writing background—when you began writing fiction, what inspired you to start?
Continue reading“Oeuf en Gelée,” your story in this issue of Subtropics, is set in a typically fashionable New York City restaurant—small room, small plates, high prices—and there’s significant talk of food throughout, whether it be what the two main characters, Laurel and Max, are eating or the paintings of food that Laurel’s friend did before she died. What drew you to write a story so concerned with food?
Continue readingReaders are always curious about the writing process. What is your process like? Do you keep a journal? Do you write in a specific place? With coffee? Soft lighting?
Continue readingWhither, quince, and whence?
Hast withered since? Hailing,
tholing transience.
The quince has borne fruit(s)
despite the fox having dug
a hole at its roots.
And not one love poem?
—I deserve to be alone.
Sent from my iPhone.
Continue readingIgnoring the cabbage, the melon and cucumber
—no disrespect meant—I concentrate
on the quince Juan Sánchez Cotán painted
in Naples Yellow, poisonous stuff, mixed with white
judging by the postcard someone sent me
years ago. It hangs on a string, a world to itself,
a quintessence, a quiddity of quince
caught between a jaundiced mortal pallor
and golden life, a hair’s breadth, a breath apart.
To eat this thing raw it must be blotched and bletted,
so best boil it down to dulce de membrillo,
making red jelly out of that hard yellow
—even this size, you feel its density and weight
forged from the steel sunlight of Toledo.