Twists of Fate
editor's note
Twists and Turns
The twist. Is it merely a cheap ploy of paperback detective novels that sit, crumbling, in secondhand book shops?
poetry
Twist of Fate
Now you're out
instead of in.
Now you're down
instead of up.
please turn me off
instead of in.
Now you're down
instead of up.
lamp on for 47 hours.
windows vibrate
in frames.
The Tread of Angels
windows vibrate
in frames.
At night, I can hear the angels protest.
Please, please. God, not another tenement.
The Heart Breaks Down Like a Mechanical Device
Please, please. God, not another tenement.
The repairman says mice have chewed
through the wires.
Thank you, I say – to the mice.
Reaction
through the wires.
Thank you, I say – to the mice.
Everyone in the town wondered
"What could the princess want with the armorer?"
Yes, I also found it strange,
but kept quiet as I still had my hopes.
art
"What could the princess want with the armorer?"
Yes, I also found it strange,
but kept quiet as I still had my hopes.
i told you
i hear puccini in my dreams
Vacancy
i hear puccini in my dreams
I hardly was aware of him
or his old suede coat
with broken zipper
and frayed sleeves.
A Redemptive Life
or his old suede coat
with broken zipper
and frayed sleeves.
This last life scattered
crowns growing thorns
he—him—his past—all one
Words of Water
crowns growing thorns
he—him—his past—all one
They flow over the dam and slowly course by
the fortress banks coldly standing their ground
Seashells of Murudeshwara
the fortress banks coldly standing their ground
Have you ever wondered how all those seashells
end up on the beach at Murudeshwara?
Opportunity
end up on the beach at Murudeshwara?
The man who stood
at the bus stop
saw the gallon
milk jug slip
from my fingers,
hit the sidewalk,
explode on my shoe.
Things Not to Say
at the bus stop
saw the gallon
milk jug slip
from my fingers,
hit the sidewalk,
explode on my shoe.
I’m dumping you because
you smell like an abattoir
or a field freshly sprayed with pig manure.
sun-peel
you smell like an abattoir
or a field freshly sprayed with pig manure.
you peel the sun like an onion
and wrap night’s brightest lie
around the moon with nimble fingers.
The Fire Next Door
and wrap night’s brightest lie
around the moon with nimble fingers.
A fire! Looking out my window
at the neighbor’s scorched
mattress, the cardboard boxes
filled with their stuff,
it looks like they’re moving
Going Home
at the neighbor’s scorched
mattress, the cardboard boxes
filled with their stuff,
it looks like they’re moving
My heart is heavy as a claw.
I've gone home.
missing meanings
I've gone home.
even forgetfulness can record absence in us
and grow to love, this missing that we culture
as flowers are tended in the mourning gardens
morning waters with tears from the sun
An Arson of the Spirit
and grow to love, this missing that we culture
as flowers are tended in the mourning gardens
morning waters with tears from the sun
Fire has ruined the bedrock chapel
monks haunted for hundreds of years.
monks haunted for hundreds of years.
fiction
A New Day
There hadn’t been any reason for Jane to believe that she would never see him again. She saw him every day, after all. At least during the week. Ten minutes to seven, brown boots, a cigarette butt between his fingertips that he flipped into the garbage can before opening the glass door. You should really stop smoking, she always told him. After three months, she knew him well enough, in an odd sort of way.
Peripheral Vision
Last month, he sent an e-mail. It was the first time I’d heard from him in months. Sometimes, his messages could be like haiku verse. In this one, he described how it felt, flying over Morocco before dawn. He said it was like floating over another planet, looking down through his night goggles at the permutations of sand dunes, isolated patches of flickering lights and withered estuaries bathed in an eerie blue, flowing and repeating their patterns beneath the window of his cockpit.
Vigil
The lights were flashing behind him, the snow was swirling, a dozen gossamer drapes, and through the twists of snow, he could see a body. Small. Likely a woman.
Salamandra and the Parking Meter
My name, Salamandra Sinclair, had been on the lease of the house for ten years. I would have kept the place occupied with paying tenants for my own sake, but the house itself seemed to demand it. If I let a room stay empty for even a month, hinges whined, stained-glass windows rattled in their casements, and the furnace went on a sulky strike. With the rooms full, however, the house settled into its foundation and hummed.
The Baker's Wife
Final-week sales exceeded their expectations and when Rose locked the doors for the last time, her greatest regret was the years she’d spent pushing European pastries instead of pursuing European life firsthand. History now, she and Sal were starting over. They’d already sold the bakery equipment to an enthusiastic gay couple who paid too much, and Sal agreed to Goodwill Industries taking everything in the apartment except their clothes. But their life, it was on hold—weeks away from closing on the building and no plans for their future.
Josephine Small
When Josephine Small went missing, there was some small uproar in the east neighbourhoods, but it soon settled down. There was, after all, nothing to be made of it. We who had lived here our entire lives knew - Josephine Small wasn't simply missing: she had vanished, pink-ribboned pigtails and all.
Paisan's Pizzeria: Time Wounds All Heels
On the far side of the blackjack table and roulette wheels were a small section of two-seater tables. At one of the tables sat a dark haired, muscular man in his thirties, dressed in a navy blue silk suit, pouring a bottle of Merlot into two Bordeaux glasses. On the other side of the candlelit table sat a woman in a sleek black dress with long blond hair, her scarlet lips smiling. Sitting with this unknown man was the woman that all of Paisan’s Pizzeria employees knew as Siobhan Kelly – Sean’s wife.
Air and the E String
Rafal Unesco played the violin for fifteen years, beginning when he was ten years old and first heard his grandfather play the Guarneri that had been handed down generation after generation in the Unesco family. No one seemed to know how his family originally came to own the very valuable 18th century instrument, but ever since Rafal heard its sweet, alluring voice he felt he must learn to play it and travel the world so everyone had a chance to hear its rare beauty.
Jenny's Secret
I learned to read when Billy was little. I was ten years older than him, but I didn’t go to school like Billy. I was born with afflictions, so Mamma and Daddy kept me home, mostly. Watching Billy do his lessons was the most joyful part of my day. He would read those stories about Dick and Jane. I used to laugh, ‘cause he would get tangled on words I knew. I would laugh, ‘cause I knew all of those words.
Home From the Dead
When he opened the door to the porch, a blond man stood there, heavy in the face, twisted mustache hanging bars at each corner of his mouth, shoulders not so broad as to mark him. All the scenarios Earl had written for six years fell away, all the survivals, all the hopes, for he had seen this moment coming, but not this man… not this narrow-shouldered man, not this bearer of a wide mustache, not this stranger.
Cellmates
In the cell was a bench, attached to the wall. It was a small cell, but the ceiling was high, and there was one tiny window through which a solitary beam of sunshine was penetrating, hitting the door. A single bulb hung from the ceiling, and had been switched on at this moment. A bucket stood in the far corner. It was, in fact, exactly what Sofiya had imagined a cell to be, which made the whole experience seem slightly unreal.
nonfiction
The Mountain and the Painter
“I don’t have a worm in my pocket,” Michelle announced happily, bouncing in from her play. This little four-year-old, brand new to our family, was completely mystified that we would look where she had clearly announced there was no need to look.