It wasn’t the first time worms had come into it. There was a vast tract of land richer than loam and home to a vast colony of worms who have lived in secret for centuries in compost, compiling a great work...
To: All Faculty and Staff From: Vice President of Human Resources Re: Mandatory COVID-19 #CampusClear Daily Screening Please complete all of these prompts on a daily basis whether or not you plan on coming...
The lizard was trapped between the glass door and the screen. Its long, crooked body and small head couldn’t hide the sight of my dry backyard. Yet the lizard was all I could see. A lizard, my sole companion in these strange days of isolation and...
J-U-S-T-I-C-E. I am writing in neon chalk on my driveway as four bare white feet dance in all directions around me. Jonas, three years old and exploding into boyhood, grabs the green chalk and scribbles around my letters. Emet, six, takes the...
I recently saw photos of Instagram influencers who had darkened their faces in a misguided show of solidarity for Black Lives Matter. Their efforts made me cringe and reminded me of a time in my own life when what began as empathy resulted in an...
Dear ______________, You stole my thunder, calling. I had been meaning to write. I guess we both felt the lack. Not that anything’s happening. Most seismic events here have been interior. Outwardly: last night I made yellow-rice-and-black...
Your sister, the Dog Star, was the brightest. You, the Pup, nobody even saw, until one night in eighteen sixty-two, when a young man with a telescope of his own devise looked up, and there, where the wobble in your sister’s gait suggested you...
Attention Volunteers: Due to ____________, we have updated the Get Out the Vote script as follows. Further changes will be uploaded to this site weekly daily hourly on the minute. Please note, we have discontinued secondary primary log...
My first experience of isolation and social distancing occurred when I was four years old. Although I understand it now through the eyes of an adult, my recollection of the episode is utterly clear. I often picture it in my mind as a time before...
Collateralized Debt Obligations Structured by Cows We rate every deal. It could be structured by cows and we would rate it. —unnamed Standard and Poor’s official It could be structured by cows and we would rate it, this bundle of regurgitated debt...
The building is filled with old ladies, some with walkers, some with aides, and many who manage quite well on their own. They are mostly widows, wearing sensible shoes from Harry’s, lots of black puffer coats, and carrying New Yorker shopping bags...
Fact death’s birth theater: a circling thicket of negligent capability’s white folding chairs on a plantation or at an inauguration. Effluvium whiteness Mount Vesuviusing to thy neighbor’s lawn— an abscess. And I’m swaddled in white, stained...
Cradling Our Breath Afloat Rocking the Heart Safe Harbour In June, I sat with a guided meditation teacher on Dan Harris’s app, Ten Percent Happier, where the prompt was simply, “cradle your breath.” As I applied the...
The Last Time Things Were Normal The last time things were more or less normal, I got a haircut. Or rather, a trim. There was no particular reason for it. I woke up, noticed the dullness of the dark, wiry strands wrapped in a bun, felt the...
They’re dressing up cats on Facebook and someone has taught a dog to play volleyball— a natural, he always makes the return. Bocelli and Orlenski transcend and console, nepenthe for the quarantined. I hold onto a kitchen chair and learn to plié. The...
Happy hour in the memory care unit means Frank Sinatra on the stereo, kiwi smoothies in little plastic cups, and my mom, wearing elasticized pants and my dad’s old zip-up sweater, dancing among wheelchairs. This late-January snapshot of my mom’s...
“…to become native of this place, if we are to survive here, and our neighbors too, our work is to learn to speak the grammar of animacy, so that we might be truly at home.” –Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass So many processes...
Como Pizza 4035 Broadway ★★★★★ $ · Pizza A hot hot slice, a treat, the epitome of NYC, an orange bubble of oil shimmering on the surface of cratered cheese. A premature bite...
Note: This essay contains spoilers. Bong Jung-Ho’s award-winning film Parasite centers around two families, the Kims and the Parks, each with four members: father, mother, son, and daughter. The Kims are all savvy, intelligent, and hardworking;...
Listen to my last breath you’ll hear each breath I’ve drawn Since my voice changed and the sound got Deeper incline your head pull down a shroud from the heaven white Folks get peace privacy from pull one down To cover us...
1. Because the blue and gold pot on my windowsill is made of Prague glass, it seems to glow in the dark. There are four small windows in the bedroom where I am living now. Deep wells set into the low wall of an attic with a sloping ceiling. Each...
