Meditation on a Morning Commute
I must tell you that in the thick of autumn on a sixty-mile stretch of Michigan highway between my cold apartment and my dark office I’ve lost count of the number of mangled deer carcasses staining the concrete shoulder, whiplashed, eyes vacant, thin necks assuredly bent at some horrendous angle, clumps of bones and fur...
Mud and Gravel
1. Gravel and mud, mud mixed with gravel, gravel sinking gray and jagged into the soft brown mud as the spring storms beat down and pass by, as puddles fill and ebb away, as the heavy yellow diggers and draggers and loaders prowl in their loud slow way. This sloppy wide mess that runs down...
Wings
It is the early eighties, the start of the civil war in El Salvador, and Maira is a child of the raindrops that come early in the summer. Thousands of raindrops. Maybe millions. Las lluvias. Desperate raindrops that smash into the mountains and the treetops, prod the soil and also the pebbles and flores, the earth forced...
How to Erase an Arab
“Israeli General Says Mission is to Smash P.L.O. in Beirut” Seventh grade, social studies—On the family tree, next to the names of my father’s family, I write locations of birth: Lebanon, Palestine, Syria. I trace flags from my atlas. There is no Palestinian flag in the book, but I know how to draw it. When...
Accessory to Genocide
Omar was what polite society called a collaborator, what spooks called an informant, what Latino Marines called a snitch, and what some white Marines called a race traitor. Omar was a man of many titles, but only one utility, and I’d forgotten about him in the sweat and sleepless nights of Forward Operating Base Riviera’s...
When We Played
1. When we played war as boys, we never died. Dead was a reset button, a do-over, a quarrel over who killed who. Maybe we played fair. Maybe we dropped our toy guns and crumpled on the grass, clutching with grunts like gut-shot movie soldiers. Grimaced and closed our eyes, but only just. Through the...
1000 Somali Shillings
The 1000 Somali shilling note is laminated to protect its colors, a mixture of orange, purple, tan, and green, from fading. On one side, women weave baskets; their images are purple, and the baskets around them are orange. Some of them seem to be full, perhaps with food. On the opposite side of the note...
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