When father wanted to take a new wife, he sang mother her panegyrics, bought her the finest boubous from a local shop, traced her wrinkled face, her feverish hands, then…
The Fortune Teller
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Tara Isabel Zambrano
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Mother touches their face and blinks like Morse code. No one understands her. I translate and do the readings for our tribe. Sometimes she picks up her stick and hits…
-cide
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Sprout Conner
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I know my mother loves me. She tucks me in each night, puts the thick wool blankets over my face, her voice wasp-like as she reads The Little Match Girl.…
At a Restaurant the Night My Son Died
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Chanel Brenner
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I sat across from him, shooting his portrait with my phone. His charcoal sweatshirt faded into the dark booth. He played tic-tac-toe in the dim light. I should have known…
Chinese Bleeding on a Friday
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Peter Ngila
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Your mami first appeared to you on a Friday morning, three hours after her death. Minutes before, your classmate Nzeli’s bad news, that your mother had given birth and bled…