Breathalyzer (from Hypothetical Review, Issue 2) Today, I will find mom in her rose garden. Pretending to be two smashed strawberries hiding behind a not-so-white picket fence, I will lie next to her. Underneath our orange blossom sky, her face is soft and red. Her hair is hay or dead grass. Golden straw, newly spun. Keys glitter […]

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¡Canta Coqui, Canta! [from Hypothetical Review, Issue 2] On a bed made of too many pillows Mi Abuelita sits up and nibbles into English. Stories of Arecibo without street lamps, without time, without roofs and first kisses on montañas alta spin as a documentary on tree frogs glows at the foot of the bed, a bowl of […]

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Portrait of Abuela as a Child on Laundry Day [from Hypothetical Review, Issue 2] Panchita fashions phantom dances out of linen stolen from neighbors’ lines that hammock rainforest sky the tear down and snap of alligator clothespins bite marrow sticky splinters rope and tastes like percussion pushed up against a river stone washboard Panchita presses perfume out […]

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This morning, Elizabeth was dead. Grey of skin to spite the sky, Elizabeth was a sickly child. Coughing more than she ever spoke, her voice was seasalt over oatmeal. Her gait was plain as rain clouds, and heavy as a storm, while her peers’ limbs floated eiderdown with graceful joints.           […]

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