Author Archives: Katie Sticca

  when I steam brown rice I remember you in the smell   when I peel purple onions I hold a wooden matchstick between my teeth   you told me it would keep away the tears   when I mince … Read More

  On the moon at noon the sky is black. You can read through closed eyes but six feet above your head the nothing sits munching little stars, microgreens to the void. Nervous yet? First leaves look nothing like the … Read More

  Before, I thought unrest was a house to move through. And tomorrow, and the after-days: a yellow window blinking on and off from the smeared street, a movement in the vacant lot something living made. A movement in the … Read More

  Redwing shouldering home, shouldering far from home, I know not but his red-capped sleeves, his epaulets. I know not but his beak, his black bird tongue, spool of him unwinding between each branch and crotch until he ends. I … Read More

  I gave the yellow skirt away and now some other woman wears it. This mild February day my body longs for spring. But I remember the skirt was heavy, made for winter, its color not of pollen but closer … Read More

  with lines by Louise Bourgeois   For a lifetime I have wanted to say the same thing. Daubing red   paint against the sky, taking it away in a different print. More blue then.   Laid down amid the … Read More

  My great-grandfather kept the peace / between the races / a man of two faces qualified, after being born a slave / to rectify and demystify the role of black men / before the throes of white sin. / … Read More

  Years passed just as years do, And I took my rescued cat, Unbruised, right to the shade Where we had planted a tree And I said to it, you can make A home of it and it did. Later … Read More

  Tell me how the sunset gets in a bird’s wings, how they carved that road to here. Two gray feathers decorate the walk between design and secrets.   Somehow, within the same stare, snow and palm trees. In another … Read More

  Teenage you wanted to speak English. Teenage you wanted to speak English in dreams. Teenage you wanted to speak English with no accent. Teenage you wanted to speak English by not speaking Chinese. Teenage you wanted to speak English … Read More

  The neurologist says the tissue is friable—a word I don’t know. I picture hissing oil, onion-tears. My grandfather tells me it means thin, easily broken. He seems to know every word, though he says I’ve discovered the only exception … Read More