The bayous fill, and the water runs into the streets; the streets fill, and the water fills the highways and the underpasses. The water swallows cars and trucks and entire families of people. It swallows fathers and mothers and babies. The...
In the evenings, we watched Jeopardy. Wore surgical masks once she got sick. Before that my mother sent me to the store for cigarettes all the time. Pack of Salem Lights.
The fate of people seeking asylum in the United States is determined not just by the legitimacy of their claims, but by where they land. This is the story of how one immigration court in Texas has shut the door on those seeking refuge in...
Of birdsongs, I know only three for certain: cardinal, blue jay, raven, though perhaps the last two don’t count—not as song. More call than song. More cry, by which I mean
The German word heimat has no direct English equivalent. The closest analogue is “homeland,” but even that fails to capture the particular way in which the German people integrate a sense of place with national identity, and the degree to...
On a Saturday morning in early June, just before the heat spikes, I set out with my eight-year-old son from Las Vegas to Los Angeles. We start the way I drive to work—north on Spencer Street past rows of midcentury ranch houses; left around...
