I flip through a folio of 112 color photographs. Thousands of acrobatic women, pyramids of men in the mud, stars and fountain shapes created by dancing children, words discernible only to those with a bird’s eye from the stands. Spartakiada-a mass gymnastics event, initiated by the esperanto enthusiast Jiří František Chaloupecký-was held in a […]

I am alive but not alive. Sister in the kitchen, searching for what we lost. As soon as Mother is home, that will be the end. The lilies on the sill in soft decay. In hushed voices, the fence unlocked. Her words soft, slow, precise. Sister is quiet. I hold her in the light. She […]

When they come for her mother’s body, Aileen is in the kitchen. She does not flinch as she hears the ambulance doors slam, the heavy footfalls on the front porch, the stretcher crashing and scraping against the doorframe. The TV is still on when two EMT’s enter the house. Aileen leads them down the hallway, […]

The academic from Paris and the self-described “gypsy,” who had met at some kind of literary or maybe linguistics conference, ruined the car ride to the restaurant; they ruined the view of the beautiful hills; they ruined the cows and the word—one of my favorite words—suckle; they ruined the sunshine and the new Young Thug […]

On my first day in Italy, my host sister Federica and I walked together by the Po. We walked down the white stone quays. Orange enamel streetcars slid over the arched bridge and vanished into the cypress-heavy hillside. Boys in long boats dipped their oars. We walked up the stairway and into the Vittorio square. […]

Mom never fucked quiet. Every few nights I’d wake up the same way, with the framed velvet art poster bouncing over my bed. Men’s moans varied, but Mom’s stayed the same—short and panty, then long and yowling. I would have rearranged my room if it weren’t so cramped and the window drafts cold year-round. She […]