The liars and the testifiers and the martyrs of water.
Thaddeus, Theta, bonecancered Carla,
who went out screaming being like an inverted birth.
Let us say a word for all those who died of God,
their hearts, we hope, a little lighter now without us in them.
Ah, ego,
my beetle,
my cockroach
crawling out of the holocaust
of lost keys, bad screws
and what have you,
how little singed you are,
how almost spry,
tentacling intact
past the wrecks and drecks
and what have you,
moon-rover roving over
the moon of me…
Continue readingThere 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.