Issue No. 27: Empire
Spring/Summer 2021
Walk among the ghosts of yesterday’s empires: in “Eleven Reasons Why Asian Americans Are (Very) Good At Math” Grace Chao muses on Asian-American stereotypes; a student discovers her convent in the Himalayan Mountains has contracted indentured servants in “Black Lace” by Beena Kamlani; in “I Hear Michael Jackson at the Diner,” Dan Kraines reflects on the shame accompanying sexual assault.
Unlocked Pieces
"Imagine having to ask / members of another society / to look for the stolen and subsequently lost / bodies of your own relatives."
"I don't write for critics and reviewers, nor do I cater to a wider audience (by which one usually means a white audience). My work is always addressed to a very small audience: Sri Lankan readers reading in English."
"Molestation did not hurt me as much as shame that surfaces. The point is not whether I experienced pleasure. But will I untie entrapment from trust, self-harm from intimacy."
"Pearl had grown up knowing and not knowing her mother. It happened sometimes: a child raised by an aunt, by grandparents. The mother hovering at the borders of their lives."
Before I discovered this project, I never imagined the drum as anything more than an inert object behind glass, one that I knew belonged to my people but was so far from home that it didn’t have meaning anymore.
Instead, I presented: One large mason jar (32oz) filled with ashes—the remains of my “Morning Pages.” The lid was screwed on tightly, a white label featuring my best penmanship: “RIP Father Figures.”
“Because our dark-haired fathers, wooden rulers snapping in tanned fists, forced us to be great at it.”
“The desert tests the faith of even the most committed. When I received orders to deploy here, I imagined sand dunes and shimmering heat.”
Masthead
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“Military folks the world over will tell you theirs is not a business of violence…That’s a lie.”