It is my job to gag her. Mike and some of the others have her pinned to the ground. The rest are watching us. My hand is covering her wildly-moving mouth. She is trying to bite me. This enrages me. I reach my other hand into my coat pocket feeling for the bandana, wondering how…
How pointlessly beautiful, a tree. How massive and calm and sometimes crushing and on fire. How a tree’s waving branches remind me of her hair that one afternoon, the breeze, the yellow shore. Everything so different and the same. How gentle, a tree. How full of knots and lumps and growths. How they press at…
Mom and I got really into the arcade claw machine one elementary school summer. Handful of tokens, a frappé from the neighboring cafe, ready. We aren’t even coffee drinkers. Our eyes scan a sea of tightly packed yellow polyester lions with auburn manes. “哪個?” “That one.” We speak different first languages, but I understand her…
Flossing
Mom flosses me every night with my limbs starfished across the kitchen counter and my head hanging off the edge. She kneels over me with a spool of minted thread and works the string between my teeth. She says nothing used to come out of there, just berry skins and basil, and I would pop…
Pimiento Season
When Mamá’s apron catches fire, my first reaction is to grab Mamá’s body and share the fire with her. Pimientos en nogada is a dish that people eat in México at weddings and important occasions. Mamá is set on making it on our special day since she wants to prove to us, but mostly to…
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