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There was a shout, then a shot fired. I pressed the shutter again and again.

I’m recalling his socks, the inked initials, the splashes of blood.

Salt provokes, tenderizes. Your wounds, your dinner.

I love it—watching gray light bleed out over the makeshift bed on the floor.

From a pyre on the burning ghat a corpse slowly sits up in the flames.

She commands, under her breath, You must be the son.

And the starved heart starts over, writing one line at a time.

Think how you move, how a room changes with your smallest breath.

For the president’s arrival they shot two dogs making love on the tarmac.

Let’s walk down to the river, bless the paper boats and turn it all into wine.

Is anybody out there? Nobody answered, and I felt archaic as prayer.

A goddess was offended; her altar required my virgin blood.

In my head at least, you thrive, you die in this mix of ghost and gone.

But too much rain can translate anything to unspeakable.

My soul is simple; it doesn’t think. Something strange paces there now.

She regarded the world calmly without the filter of her suffering.

A memory in the drip, drip, drip of the kitchen sink that won’t stop.

Charlie wasn’t Lena’s first love, but he counted on being her last.

I tell my sister what I didn’t tell my father, I love you. Please, don’t die.

I saw a bat in a dream and then later that week I saw a real bat.

I know which home takes the turning, which mind washes in hot water.

My father challenged us to a free-throw shooting contest.

My mother’s house was packed, painted, put up for sale—sold.

They cut you off, let fall your hammered silver bracelets to the sand.

Help me, please help me, is the beggar’s refrain on the F train today.

Now he chuckles with the sea, stitched within its timeless jive.

Yes, Eylon thought, he lied to Cath. Lied about his day, about the risks.

He has his hands on Nii’s throat, and this time I do not stop them.

When she gets to Lenny’s he offers her a beer and a bong hit...