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Body and Mind
This Month In Sun History
Our 50th Year Of Publication
The most important December in Sun history is, well, this one: the month in which Sy Safransky, after fifty years of laboring to put out the magazine he founded, steps away from his desk and becomes, deservingly, editor emeritus.
November 2023
20, 40, 60, 80
Middle-aged people shrink, crease, fade, and, if they’re lucky, slowly lose the desire to be noticed, the way we once lost our childhood taste for Necco Wafers or Pez. My desire to be seen is gradually being replaced by the desire to see: the faces of those I love, the cardinal in the bush, the socks of the woman with multiple sclerosis who swims at the Y.
November 2023
The Salmonella Special
In twelve months I hadn’t set foot in a supermarket, hadn’t compared the prices of two brands of bread, hadn’t stood in a checkout line to buy anything, not even a pack of Tic Tacs. Everything I ate had been thrown away. Everything I ate, I’d found first.
October 2023
Forecasting
November steals light. Its groaning, / overstuffed table force-feeding / December’s mandatory twinkle. Sticky / sugar & shine. A buffer for the hangover / January brings, when we huddle & low, hay damp / in our shuttered mangers, pockets emptied / of savings & saviors
October 2023The Nail Salon
Some people remember childhood bike rides and ice-cream sundaes; I remember acetone and moon-slivers of nails.
October 2023Fire
A chair flies through your window and someone’s screaming for you to come out and you’re fourteen and he’s twenty and there’s nowhere to go and no cops coming and no one to make this any better, and you become a flame that can’t be extinguished.
October 2023
Selected Poems
For two years The Sun was a lighthouse that guided me through rough, dark waters: Every line of mine that Sy [Safransky] published penetrated a little more of the fog called imprisonment. Every poem revealed my wrecked spirit dashed against the reef. Not only had Sy loved them, but Sun readers sent letters of appreciation, which Sy printed in the magazine. I’d never been complimented for anything, much less a literary contribution. My life had some hope in it now.
October 2023The American Dream
An Indian immigrant, an oil-company man, a bicycle-riding nomad
October 2023
Animal Moments
At the hospital two nurses, a doctor, and Dave all stand and watch as I transform into animal. My body expels fluids, feces, and finally a human baby. I grip the bed, howl, grunt, and writhe. Outside the window the trees are sunlit, and the leaves stutter in the breeze. I try to forget that I took a shit in front of Dave.
October 2023
Smoke Memories
My mother and I were alone the night / our house burned down. I was nine that summer, / and the smell of smoke clung to my clothes. / And after the fire a tree in the yard / grew crooked with scoliosis, its back bending / away from the remains of the house.
October 2023
