Here  —  where once had been a Merry Go Round, a United Colors of Benetton, a Chess King, and where now the protagonist stands outside the store  —  the mall is dead. Cattails grow where the fountain once burbled in the central court.

And some nights, you ended up sitting in your car in a Wendy’s parking lot, feeding chicken nuggets to a cat that sort of used to be yours but now definitely was yours because your ex-roommate Benny called from his shiny new apartment across Cleveland and said, “If you want it, you can have the…

Traverse the left atrium and ford the pulmonary artery. The heart’s topography is complex, and you may easily become lost in a tangle of veins. If the trail of your aorta dead ends, consult your map legend. Here you will find a way across the Pacific Ocean to a teahouse in Seoul. 

She hated to cut into such perfection. Pressing the knife blade into the thick skin of the dragon fruit, the woman admired one last time its flamboyant pink and green gown straight out of a fashion magazine. It wasn’t fair. She sliced it cleanly in two. The inside was remarkably plain in comparison. Small black…

The wrong turn out of La Herradura, thanks to the map app. The wrong rental car parking lot: again, the app.  The ex-husband who would be here to help if he wasn’t the ex. The gas station crowded with cars; no time to top off the tank. The sign pointing to a parking garage: rental…

My home has always been Kerman, desert-city of Iran, heat ripples ascending from the asphalt. Above sunbaked clay walls, the cacti poked their green heads shyly. Walking back from middle school, I daydreamed about how if I was taller and more courageous, I could reach into Mrs. Habibi’s yard, our elderly neighbor, and snatch away…

You say, before we take the next step in our relationship, I should know there’s someone else. “A woman,” you say, like I’m unfamiliar with the term. “A woman who lives inside me.” And I think this means you have an unhealthy attachment to your mother because you say this while we’re in your bedroom.…

Step One: Have a baby. When the nurse offers skin to skin, say yes. Watch as the baby mewls and pulls her way along your torso. Marvel at how she homes in on your nipple, rubs her face across your breast until she finds purchase. Feel her need snake its way through you.  + Step…

 I wash the rice carefully, drag my fingertips through its grains until the cold water running through no longer drains milky. Then, I slide it into a bowl with two curls of cinnamon bark, steaming water fresh from a trembling kettle. It needs thirty minutes to soften, so I clean the kitchen in the meantime,…

One morning, I’m sucking down coffees in my kindergarten classroom when two men in suits stroll in.  “Nice room you got here,” one says. He looks like Steve Buscemi and has a similar kind of menace, a kind not backed up by physical size. The other one, no bigger, picks up a kid’s art project…

His name was Dozer, but I liked to call him Baby.  Baby, sit. Baby, shake. Baby, roll over. He never listened because he only knew his real name, since Daddy and Peter called him so, but I knew he liked Baby, too, because he’d look at me with his big brown eyes when I said…

Years of going to México with your dad, and y’all still haven’t found her. He packs up the truck without speaking, but shortly after you climb in, he calls you to his side.  “Salte de la troca, you need to get ready.” You’re little but old enough for your words to matter when crossing, old…