by zamora | November 6, 2023
The hoarfrost makes castles of the mud along the creek’s edge where the toadshave burrowed below the frozen groundsnuggled into their armies, unmoving except for the pulse of their zibeline throats.In their death-dreaming they forget ice has stopped the water’s...
by zamora | November 6, 2023
For my Father In the machine shop, you have lost birdsong.Your hearing worn to blunt on the fine end by the quick pitch of cut steel ground long. Gonethe trill of warbler, sparrow, finch and wren. As now the meadowlark’s throat pours silence,you recall song but...
by zamora | November 6, 2023
I’ve never played blackjack in real life before, but suddenly I’m winning $250. In the Las Vegas of my pre-trip fantasy, my teeth are glinting back at the dealer dressed in a lavish suit and tie as she slides my money over the table. There’s a crowd behind me,...
by zamora | November 6, 2023
Tinwash River How many years of patience—patience like a rasp—To grind, to quarry a mountain down? Stone bridges, their moss-tagged undersides lush,Arch just over the water—Motion and rock, spume and static. Where the paved road stops, the path...
by zamora | October 20, 2023
History He asked for my introduction.I wrote it in a hundred words. He didn’t like it. He altered my bio. I refused to accept.He took me down.That’s how our history was written. Listen to the author America Held My Hand Once exited from the...
by zamora | October 20, 2023
If this were a short story, it would open with a toddler, still in her Cinderella nightgown, rushing from floor vent to floor vent for the blast of heat whining through the metal grate pressing into the soles of her bare feet. The TV is on, her choice, a cat...
by zamora | October 20, 2023
When I am talking about Asian hate, I try to talk without referencinga violent word, so I say: a peaceful processionwas taken over by candle masters & the victims kept...
by zamora | October 20, 2023
after La Sonora Ponceña Six weeks pregnant with our second, Crisely reclines. I note her spine at ease as I belt out a refrain from the LP her papi would sing while twirling & guiding his pregnant cariñoall through the eighties& nineties & past the...
by zamora | October 20, 2023
At birth, you were deadly serious.Hours old and days old, you gazed at me with the bluest of Siamese cat’s eyes.Your whole hand held my index finger and you wouldn’t let go,wouldn’t take your eyes from mine. Later, you were a kitten, mewling for milkand curled...
by zamora | October 20, 2023
As the plane descended into the smog of ChennaiI awoke to fields of sugar cane stretched to the horizon, villages pushing back forests. Concrete cities erupting between temples- rock stacked upon rockwrenched from the Deccan kiln. The turbulence of one...
