I went into the Superstore looking for a head of lettuce. / In the snack aisle, I found my sixth grade classroom: / Go-Go…

Remember / the three / little pigs / how they / smoked up—the chimneys / and rafters, how they / sang like moths?

My lola was a teacher, a young / visionary. She taught her sons how to plant rice / fields that stretch to the Pacific…

The cat eats plastic, obsessively, / like a real freak, and it seems we’re always / ripping something out of his mouth…

I want to live by the ocean. / Trade city slurs for crashing / waves / and live on the edge / of mother’s…

We forage for beef jerky, / transform water into Red Bull, / barter for maps with broken / prayers of safety…

After the wrong rocket collided with the moon / By way of lodestar, / we find our way to a / dark trampoline, thin…

i was lost, so i killed my sanity/ honed my discipline/ trained to solve non-problems chosen by tortured people/ because i thought i needed…

Under the benches / of the girl’s locker room, / in a small private elementary school, / is my deadname, calligraphy in the wood.…

Who am I? / Al-Zaitoon from the forgotten land. / 1948, at three, on foot from Haifa to Sidonto Amman / Until his last…