When my mother delivered her third son, her doctor told her she would never be able to conceive again. When she conceived her fourth son, her doctor said it wo...
My Body
When we met, he said he loved this body, which had given life twice over. And I was proud of my powerful legs and taut biceps, for carrying my son o...
Every day I wake up knowing I’m going to be shaking-scared for an hour at the absolute minimum. I’m going to drive to work and then I’m going to drive home aga...
—an exaltation of Igbos
People do not know what to make of me. My eyes bagging the baggage of my lives know that my nose flows from those of my kith and...
Southern pride, pride in southern toughness or roughness, is not something I know, not really, though I grew up here and I ran away from here when I was a teen...
I’d seen her for months in my Oakland hills neighborhood. In her ill-fitting reflective safety vest near Safeway where I bought the Lunchables my two children ...
Of course there is a right way to grieve. That is to carry your solemn soul tucked deep inside, to smile when smiling is called for, to keep the tears unspille...
On Monday my mother took her drugs to navigate the maze. To light the way she lit up one filtered cigarette—slims, 100s, menthols, whatever was on sale—and the...
The first time I see the little girl, she is in a photograph. A closed room, a field medical tent on an American military outpost in a dusty farming village. C...
At first light there is a world in my ribcage. I fasten it shut with a clink and throw away the key. I’ll use it another time, I say to myself.
I ponder vib...
