When I die, bury me under a tree. Not a maple or spruce, or even
an eastern red cedar (although it is my favorite). Bury me under
Tachigali versicolor, the suicide tree, given the name for flowering
only once before dying, sacrificing her body as sustenance for her
sapling children. Let me be the one to support her, giving all that
my frail body will have left to offer to ease the burden of her selfless
motherhood. When her time comes, let her wood, one of densest
and hardest of any Central American tree, be fashioned into a kitchen
table, round and tastefully simple, one that gets used, often, for breakfast,
dinner, even for homework. Let it become faded and carved and
mistakenly colored by kids that know happy lives; maybe the legs
will have teeth marks from the dog, maybe more from the copycat kid.
Let the kids’ mother be kind—not nice, kind. Let her be the type to
never dip her words in thick syrup but her touch always be sweet.
Let all those around her know her genuine smile, illuminating the
simple wonders like the sun illuminates the morning dew. Let her
be the type to never have to say I love you because of how she
shows it, but let her say it anyway. Let her kids be comfortable.
Let her be happy. Let me bear witness to this through this tree,
supporting hands and rogue elbows as the mother teaches the kids:
in spite of all, love.
I, The Leafcutter Ant by Kyle Singh
—The ants go marching one by one, hurrah, hurrah!
I, the leafcutter ant, come with the pharaoh and the whitefooted one.
You’ve cupped your hands and made me dance, creator of patterns of light, you have guided me.
O, I am so grateful to you. O, silver headed God, thank you for this apple core, rotten and punctured.
Thank you for the dirt in the yard for me to burrow in, for the softness of your fingertips so my
mandibles can draw blood.
Thank you
We carried aphids on our backs, green and sweet, the aphids were ready to yellow the leaves.
The leaves thanked us
Then, gently, we tapped them with our antennae and asked for sap, to protect them from the midges
and lacewings.
The aphids thanked us
We have exchanged gifts with you now, God. I bow down to you and you to me.
And then there are the lasers, red dots in darkness, followed by sounds of crackling, swooshing release
of a firecracker, the lasers on them, the sound of rockets and lasers on them, where are the beams
coming from?
Such wild noises that make me scurry in frenzy, now curious about the nibbed pattern of rubber
above, tacky, which smashes the pharaoh. Then there is some kind of odorless oil that the whitefooted
one steps in, stepping another time, not returning.
I hope I have left you something in return
I, the leafcutter ant, now leave alone
California Haibun by Paget Chung
She wanted a home. Now she stands. Feet buried in sand, surrounded by Sinatra blue water. He waves from the shore, figure diminished against the shadow of pleated mountains. A coastline only stretches as wide as the tips of your fingers. Your open arms. A coastline only stretches as far as the echo of your last laugh. The distance it sprinted. The number of skips it landed on placid water, ringlets reverberating from every point of contact. It only takes Ocean to reach its sinuous arms across the midwest and hold up a mirror to each. Ocean to leave a briny trail of breadcrumbs away from what they thought was home but was only house. Was only familiar. Because scorched earth makes way for new beginnings. She can fashion paintbrushes from blackened bramble and soot. He can only dream in the moment when the smoke finally clears. So he puts his head down and works instead. To the sound of computer keys, the click of ballpoint pens, the ringing in his head when it’s one AM and the desk lamp pulses with every heartbeat. But also, he works to the sounds he cannot hear. The ones farther away. The whisper of waves, jangle of new house keys, buzz of chatter in a busy city from faces that look like his. Watch them run down the beach, only air in tow. In twenty years she’ll be holding a wide brimmed sun hat to cover her scars. He won’t have glasses anymore. The ocean behind them will be made up of tears. But for now, he’ll work her foundation, she’ll paint him a home. The space in their heads is paneled with white. Over time water will seep in. The tides will bring pebbles, then stones, then a whole layer of sediment. Their bodies will change. Their lungs will learn to depend on golden light, their stomachs on fresh fruit. But their feet will always remain rooted to the land.
He asked for her hand
Two travelers on a coast
Before them the sea
Five Ways of Looking at Snow by Eliza Dunn
“Krupnik and others charted the vocabulary of about 10 Inuit dialects and concluded that they indeed have many more words for snow than English does.”
- “There really are 50 Eskimo words for ‘snow,’” The Washington Post
1.
This much I know—
each morning my brother unwraps himself
from sheets and sleep and moves to his piano
like a ghost. His long fingers ache out
a winter song—for the still-blue morning
and early February and the days I wake
to yesterday’s snow and his notes falling through
cold air like so many prayers.
2.
Wintertime in upstate New York—my brother and I
in our great-aunt’s horse barn. We are nine and ten
and he is not yet taller than me, still swimming in my hand-me-down
coat. We’ve snuck away from family dinner and ducked
the wooden planks at the stable door—now alone with the horses,
their gentle huffing, shifting hooves in snow.
My brother approaches one—dark maned, white spray
of chest—holds out his small hand in offering. Brief pause,
momentary brush between palm and whiskered nose.
A holiness in the silence, shrinking space between boy and animal.
I’m holding my breath. I want to get closer but suddenly the door I left open
swings shut and the horse spooks, rears back on hind legs.
From this close, I can see round flank and thick knots of muscle,
flakes of hay flying. When I reach for my brother my hands grasp
at nothing and I am so sure that he has somehow turned to snow—
swirling snow, remembered snow, snow mixing itself with breath.
But it is just his coat that I’ve caught between fingers, so I reach again
until I find shoulder, hard curve of bone. When I pull him close to me,
he is not afraid but glassy-eyed, awe-drunk at this being,
the thunder of it. Mouth slack and emptied.
All his words flown out into whitened world.
3.
Tomorrow’s snow, snow that makes haloes,
snow sparkling with moonlight, starlight, flashlight.
Snow at dawn. Snow that makes pictures in the air,
that blinds you, that never reaches the ground.
4.
March, spring cleaning, many years later. Snow still piled along roadside,
now muddied, puddled. I am the only one home, surrounded by things,
various proofs of my presence. I peek into my brother’s room, sun-flooded
and all taken-apart, packed into neat piles: collared shirts, too-small blazer,
thumbed-through copy of Sartre. Sometimes I wish I could walk through him
like a room, memorize its quiet interior. Then, I think, I wouldn’t imagine
the horse again and again, the way the snow seemed to pause, floating—
the trembling space its body left in the air.
There is something I’m supposed to learn from this, I know—
some kind of prayer. I move from room to room,
begin the careful work of remembering.
5.
Later, I’ll wake to early-spring snow making haloes of the streetlights outside.
My dreams already forgotten except for one scene: my brother, running into a frost-covered pasture
waving for me to follow. My chest swollen with air, hands splayed in the dimness.
They reach, palms open, for something unsayable and sought after.
Sepulchre by Aidan Ferrin
On cloudy days I would search
For the woodpeckers among
The reeds in the backyard
And wash their limp bodies in the river.
My father told me they died of fright.
I dug a mausoleum into the
Peonies and lowered them into
The soil among the junebugs.
Spelt bread was dry on my tongue
And my elbows were wet with soap
But the sun was hot. I sat
Cross-legged on the rocks, threw
Crumbs into the ditch, and twisted the
Bullet hole around my index finger.
It takes a liar to know one.
When the Sun Goes Down by Teddy Press
The Florida sun set hours ago.
I sit down and celebrate.
Slathered up in Carolina Orange
barbecue sauce, I
claw my way into the shoulder.
It just falls apart.
I heard somewhere that pork is the most commonly
consumed meat in the world, but
today it makes me feel like a prince.
These drippings are not fool’s gold, they’re
the Real Thing. Count the smoke rings, they’ll tell all.
Sigh.
Gulp of water.
Wipe mouth with napkin.
I tell you, that Boston Butt was hard work.
I stood over the Green Egg for two hours this morning,
sweat dripping onto the ceramic shell. I’m sure it’s burned off
into steam, maybe even condensed back onto me.
This was a labor of love.
It had to be, to withstand neighbor Andy’s hollers from his backyard.
I can suck on my fingers, the nail beds are purple. I’m royalty,
I can do what I want, fuck manners, my elbows stay
on the table. I need them there, to catch the golden drippings and
pick the skin. This is less of a surgery, more of a dissection,
tearing sinew from brown bone. My friends and I have nightly
dinners, but tonight we are not talking (it is a silence of love).
No offense but I’m taking more.
My vision has tunneled, I’ve had some tequila,
and I spent hours hunched over the grill, making sure the
temperature was just right. If you look close enough, you can
see the fur sprouting from my knuckles. I’m not just wolfing
down food, I’m werewolfing down food. The southerners told me the
secrets of the divine (barbecue), how we had to pat that baby down in
French’s Mustard and massage in the spices. I’m a chemist by training
but an alchemist at heart, I spoke incantations to the grill,
Please don’t burn.
I prayed for deliverance. God responded without words. How could
He? He was too busy chowing down, a mouth full of pork.
He passed me the cornbread and looked me in the eye.
Then, He moaned.
mmm mmm mmm.