Dispatches | Page 27

Nothing But the Sea

November 7, 2012 Dispatches

I live a few blocks from a cruise ship terminal. When ships dock there, they tower above the nearby buildings, which top out at four or five stories high. At night, their decks and windows glitter in neat rows, like high-rise apartment buildings, as if downtown Manhattan has suddenly been pulled close. When the ships finally depart, their horns boom dramatically, out of place in my quiet, unassuming neighborhood of Red Hook, Brooklyn.

My Greek Epiphany

October 31, 2012 Dispatches

By JULIA LICHTBLAU

EXODOS. I deciphered the Greek letters, extrapolating from the Cyrillic alphabet learned in college Russian. Exodus! A hairy Charlton Heston parting the Red Sea in The Ten Commandments popped into my mind. A domestic Moses, my husband spurred our lagging, quarreling kids on to baggage claim and immigration.

The Road to Thunder Bay, Pt. 1

October 24, 2012 Dispatches

By JAMES A. GILL

This is the first part of a two-part Dispatch. Pt. 2 will be published online in November.

She slept for the first two hours of the trip, and when she woke up, the first thing she said was, “When we get back I want a divorce.” We were headed north with the hopes of going to Canada for no other reason than to say that we’d left the country. We’d decided on Thunder Bay, Ontario, because it was the closest destination across the border from our home in southern Illinois. And now, it seemed, the trip was doomed before we’d covered half the length of our own state.

Redressed

October 17, 2012 Dispatches

By KRISTA LEAHY

Cold beer, slippery hands, cigarettes no one (everyone) wanted,

Uneasy Sleep

October 10, 2012 Dispatches

By YVETTE CHRISTIANSE

Who was it that cried out? This cry,

a call that opens night

breaks out like a bird

breaking to greet dawn, or

the arrival of a high tide

that brings schools of fish

whose scales make the waters

glint and shimmer, glint and shimmer.

I Want What Comes After

October 3, 2012 Dispatches

By KELWYN SOLE

I want what comes after:

the first lifted bucket’s clang

once the rooster’s all crowed out,

a keen thirst for fresh water

as sequel to that sound

Where I Write

October 2, 2012 Dispatches

By NICOLA WALDRON

Writing in Place is a column in which authors published in our print and web pages tell us about their writing spaces.

I write in a glass-sided room, an addition to a 1950s brick bungalow, southern style. From the threshold that once led to the outdoors, it’s just one giant stride to my desk: space enough to tap at a keyboard, or lie down; for books and papers to breed, but not for dancing (a tiny tango when someone says yes).

Poetry in the New Prison

September 26, 2012 Dispatches

By KOBUS MOOLMAN

The guard at the gate smiles a toothless smile, and lightly taps the security boom open for me. We recognize each other; him with his brown uniform and heavy automatic tucked into a pocket on the front of his bullet-proof jacket, me with my rusted car and naive wave.

A Feria

September 19, 2012 Dispatches

By ROLF YNGVE

People would tell us to go see the big tree, and finally we flagged ourselves into one of the cheap cabs that go between Santa Maria del Tule and Oaxaca de Juarez on a set route. It was getting dark early under an overcast sky, the remains from tropical storm Ernesto, who had petered out after making some news in the Yucatan.

We found the big tree, a knob made for the grip of some great giant who could use it to lift the entire town – the entire state – out of the Mexican ground. It seemed to squat between the mayoral offices and the church. All the nearby buildings clung to earth like the homes of dwarves.