No Poem Is the Only Poem. No Story Is the Only Story.
I had been reading Haiku for five years before moving to Japan. Bashō, Issa, Buson…their work hovered in my margins like birds outside a window: elegant, distant, beautiful. I read their poems with reverence, but from a certain remove, as one might admire a bonsai in a museum case.
The way I tend to write is less about beginning with a clear argument and more about paying attention to small moments until they begin to suggest something larger.
The afternoon I was supposed to sign my employment contract, I walked out the company doors, resolved never to return.
The lights flashed in the rearview mirror. Red and blue filled every inch of space. I looked over at my roommate, Sonya. We were driving home after a night of partying in Coconut Grove. It was Sonya’s last day in Miami, where we were freshmen at Florida International University.
And again and now, I will try and reason with the mirror.
...I was told repeatedly not to go to the end of the block. This was said as if creatures from a distant planet lived there. My mother was of the opinion that the people “at the end of the block” were to be avoided.