Sé Que Mi Cuarto es un Desastre / I Know My Room is a Disaster
It all begins with an idea.
By Isa Guzman
face down no words dust on el espejo
cluttered suicida y books left in piles
spines out repeating mismo dias
spines out misreading myself psicosomática
reread my respiración
reread headlines y ostras cosas
I wish I could sleep
en las palabras and find a truth to feel comfortable in
pero beso the inside of my arm
para sentir mi propia temperatura
me siento frío but I feel hot
no thermometer to read the time it takes
for the sirens to pass
y las sirenas es código for i am pale lonely
por otra semana y llamame una vez
llamame y voy saltare por esta ventana
head first into waiting out fever
quiero tocar mas que aire y voz
quiero tocar mas than empty take-out containers
I want to hear time
wrapped en ceniza de salvia
y plumas vacías
y páginas con todos los nombres for love
I want to hear everyone survived
Salt Wife
It all begins with an idea.
By Mari Pack
Among the Rabbis, there is some debate:
What damned the sinners?
Men, their mouths open — hunger,
hunger, hunger. Hands, asses, thrusting —
frantic as questions. Sex —
always to blame.
Or an issue of hospitality?
Give us your guests
said the mob at the door,
but Lot jammed the lock, offered
his own daughters, hair rolling down
their backsides
like lace.
Who could miss this city?
They say Lot’s wife. She turned, so they say
she liked it.
No, I disagree.
That’s the thing about women,
always looking backward
to see what we’ve lost:
What did she face in her doubt?
Was it smoke rising
like jellyfish,
an unmistakable smell of eggs?
I turned to wave at the terminal —
whistle of wind through a pillar of salt.
Mary, Paris, Texas
It all begins with an idea.
By Clare Needham
Watching the Wim Wenders film with Mary when we were twenty-two and in Berkeley – she’d wanted to show it to me, she knew I’d like it. The first minutes of the film, Aurore Clément’s French pronunciation, “Chris – But, Chris!” – and the car with its lights climbing a hill at dusk, purple, rose, blue – “Those lights!” Mary said, and I felt them, too. This was the same week she had me sit next to her in the dark and watch Gregg Araki’s Mysterious Skin. One boy believes aliens abducted him. The other boy knew what was up, and made a life from selling sex. The next morning Mary and I reported nightmares, both saying we didn’t know why.