The Annotated Bibliography of One Librarian’s Spiritual Life, Including Library Cataloging and Classification (of course)
Allen, J. F., and Carlo Tora. The New Illustrated Children’s Bible in Stories. Royal Publishers, 1970. PUT_J 220 New; Bible stories, English — Bible stories, English–juvenile literature. PUT_SEE also: Parenting–religious aspects — Free thought. This book, given to my sister by a family friend, sat on a bookshelf in our …
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SHE SHARK [HOW TO CIRCLE A TANK]
Some sharks must swim, constantly, in order to breathe. That’s why, when confined, she circles the tank like a madwoman. [I go to see the shark at the aquarium, I find I am unprepared for her sadness] [How to circle a tank? Asks the she-shark, asks the soldier] A shark …
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Isolation
in my parents’ basement pretending the desk is a bar top pouring-can-into-glass acting as the girls who work the taps who are kind and smile for tips and are fragile as falling glass, smash. here i chew my finger skin and drink until i sleep because my teenage mattress in …
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The Year of the Weight
When Navid Abhari was twelve, going to the movies meant parting ways in the theater lobby. He felt very strongly that the only way to watch a movie was among strangers. They would stand in line together to buy popcorn. Then, upon exiting the snack bar, he would say, “Well, …
Read Morephoto of my grandmother climbing a fence
she wears the sky because the sky knows the distance. it is a blue cascade, blue as grief, as drowning. her hands are emaciated brown, holding her up. over the fence. over and over again, dementia takes over my grandmother. over my grandmother, dementia takes and takes and takes and …
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Are They Lisianthus?
My eighty-year-old mother says no, no, I think they just are. She doesn’t remember names, what was. Roots sunk deep, she just is. I dream of gardens: boxwood labyrinths where I might lose myself. Some place where the planted surpasses the planned. Untended blossoms become brambles. Brambly thicket, her mind. …
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While He Works, the Electrician Chats
about disaster. Connections at switches twisted just a bit loose. Squirrels in the attic, sharp teeth and splintered copper. Breakers corroding themselves into spark. Outlets that smell like burning because they are. Now he’s sawing a hole in our sheetrock. Says the air behind walls can whip with current. Arcing …
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Artifacts
I could tell you that I’m brave, but brave is a lie. I could tell you that I’m doing well, but that denies the very nature of loss. This is an archaeological dig, everything contained & conjured. It’s raining/blackbirds. I drag a duffel, grey, onto the porch & start …
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Scale
“The cleverer I am at miniaturizing the world, the better I possess it.” – Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space “My map and measurements yielded a thesis which I wrote out in ink and tried to prove mathematically: the notion that affiliation is borne by proximity, and that proximity is requisite …
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Radicle: An Interview with Morgan Talty
I discovered Morgan Talty’s work a few months ago when I saw his name frequently appearing on all the highly anticipated book release lists that come out at the start of each year. I bookmarked some of his stories and read each one gradually, on my dimmed phone screen during …
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