VQR Online

On her wedding day, a bride should slip a good penny into her shoe
to ensure luck and wealth during the life of her marriage.

We’re at the Potts Mountain Shooting Range
on a hot day in March, blowing ammo,

I wanted to say I have come home
to bear witness, to read the sign
emblazoned on the church marquee—

This is Max Rameau seizing the moment: hunting down foreclosed houses left idle by the banks, or by the city, so that he can take them over. Rameau contends that everyone, no matter what, deserves a home, and he considers the surplus of...

This week they are painting
the North Gulfport water tower.

You are the country at war and the city ablaze.
You are the flags lining Fourth Street and the singer

In Juárez, people vanish. They leave a bar with the authorities and are never seen again. They leave their homes on an errand and never return. They go to a meeting and never come back. They are waiting at a bus stop and never arrive at...

Here is my solitary city. This island of steel
and avenue. Towers with skeletons of organ

I thought that when I saw my brother
walking through the gates of the prison,
he would look like a man entering his life. 

After his two years of schooling, Eduardo took up the destiny ordained to the people of Pocoboch: growing yucca, squash, tomatoes, chiles, beans, and corn on small plots carved into the jungle. There may not have been much money, but for...