“Better Latte Than Late” by Rekha Valliappan They dined on mince, and slices of quince, Which they ate with a runcible spoon; And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand, They danced by the light of the moon. –Edward Lear Rila works from home at Author, Self-Published. She was a motorbike rider once, in the days when Harley-Davidsons looked a whole lot different than they look today. But she wants to grow a jardin potager—a French urban herbal garden, and sip dynamite charcoal latte the livelong day. So she can write books. Motorbikes is where she derives her courage from—to face life on concrete terms like a man. Where she comes from girls, cradle to grave, do not even ride bicycles, although some books written a hundred years ago suggest women bicycled their…

Continue reading →

Tryst mid-afternoonthe hotel corridor is quietoutside our room where feeble lightdulls bleached sheets later on when the sky is dueto erupt and hasten darknesswrapped in a fog shroudI have a fifty-mile drive home but right now I am malleablebeneath your calloused palms I am a well-fed bird eager to settlewithin the coarse and tenderthe flesh-and-bonenest of you Unincorporated Places at night you drive, alert for deer and drunkswhile I gaze west, my retinas gather the glowof stray porch lights and second-story windows  from communities tucked into collarbone hollowsalong the interstate, which reeks of a paper mill some of their names I mispronounce, but you nevercorrect the strange syllables in my mouth Tenuous is the Thread chaos barely constrained by butterfly wings that make figure eights yet tectonic plates gnash their teeth and continents break  could be a low-flying planeor seismic…

Continue reading →

Easter Vigil I had imagined it otherwise.Not as we are, on the white sandpossibly surrounded by peacocks and peahens.I meant the other thingwhich I no longer remember. The year Igor Markevitch diedthe batons of conductorsturned to asps and slithered offuntil spiked to death by the cellists.A pistol cracked in B-flat.Aldo Moro was no more. The cognoscenti raisedtheir little coffee cups;thei rsaucers whiteunfractionable hosts.Pop the trunk: Morois not there, for he has risen.The brigades reddenand limp off, firing Kalashnikovs into hollow desert. Asice locked Lake Como’s secretsdeep within, no one sawMarkevitch descend to Hadesin the form of a bee, orMoro,saints, and Caesarswho swatted him away.The peahen’s voiceis a cry for helpbut Lazarus cannot help her,waiting as he must for his second death,knowing full well what to expect.Romano Prodi staggers from the gravesmiling fatly. He smells of eucalyptus.Like bits of…

Continue reading →