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A Plague Journey

I am more than the world you asked me to be— 

The copper mine in Erdenet, Mongolia, provides jobs, income, opportunities. It finances most of the city’s infrastructure. It funds a hospital. People are grateful for the mine, and proud. There’s copper everywhere in Erdenet.

Bow to the peaches heavy and timeless, wrapped in sheets of cool.

The laws of war make for a brittle pact at best, and can seem like a tragic fallacy up against an army’s nihilistic impulses. Russia’s tactics in Ukraine prove as much: atrocities in Bucha; the bombing of a maternity hospital in Kharkiv...

I feel compelled to give you an ending, a promise of hope 

Take death for a walk in your minds, folks. Either you’ll die glad you did, or, keeling over suddenly, you won’t be out anything. 

and all its straight-razor backroads planted with plaster 
farmhouses bowing to January’s muddy expanse

My daughter throws up once or twice a day opening mouth then hands as if to pour out what was once clenched. Throws up pillows, backpacks, and refrigerators. Builds a version of our cat from pretend vomit, builds a version of our kitchen. I...

Took a series of self-portraits on my bed: one hand over my right eye then left as if to mimic another’s gaze.