Hawai‘i Literature & Art
— Since 1978 —
I was idling in math class staring at an algebra equation that I couldn’t balance properly when in my periphery, Mr. Morita cruised in and headed straight for Mrs. Peralta’s desk. I’m not psychic, but I knew in my gut he was here for me. As they chatted, Mrs. Peralta glanced my way. That only…
Barbwire snagged the left knee and I had torn it turning away from a stile, nearly losing balance while sloughing through the black mud of a backtrail curving behind a taro farm nestled in a Big Island valley. During a California drought, the right knee split open as I knelt and rose repeatedly to load…
In the Philippine summer after my matriculation, I was failing to explain to my aunt via my mother’s frustrated sign language: I was not married. Her misunderstanding arose upon receiving a photograph of a smiling couple: myself in a tuxedo and a young woman in ivory, clutching a vendela rose bouquet and beneath, flourishing English…
I was trailing after my dad through the supermarket. We were walking through the meats and seafood section. For a second time, I reached up and filched crushed ice from the displays of fish. Tilapia was the only fish I knew at the time. It was then I ran to catch up after my dad….
“‘Kay, Esteban, you on break.” As Esteban stepped away from his position, he lifted his chin in acknowledgment. With a barely suppressed sigh, he pulled off the latex monster hands he had been waving at patrons of the haunted house. Once past the curtains, he mingled with the exiting patrons. Esteban walked past the other…
My jeans were distressed in a time before it was fashionable. Faded now, this grease stain on the inside right leg was from an offer of a tandem joyride on the gravel and grey- dust roads of a municipality in a northern province of Luzon. This belt loop was torn open while stumbling past a…
I would learn of them when the holiday nights grew long and the cans and bottles emptied of Bud Light and Heineken. In languid Ilocano, my elders disagreed on the count of their siblings. Does one number among those who died infants or were stillborn? I am one of three name bearers, it is my…
In the distance, Waipahu town lights scrape away at the black edge of this evening sky with the monochromatic yellow of sodium vapor lamps. Beneath us, we do not notice the new asphalt roof tiles still warm from slanting afternoon sunlight, nor the faint salt taste of the last onshore breeze. Enchanting our imaginations is…
Like Prometheus, I bear forbidden knowledge. The secrets of flight stolen from the realm of dreams. I will offer you these esoterica. Shall you rise in darkness? Shall you fall in light? Which most appeals to your nature? When the sun rises, scale the highest peak within sight of your circular horizon. Fling yourself from…
I zip up my hoodie, my mottled green armor against the modern day. I slip on my true face. I swing onto the stage, the swagger cloaks my trembling core. Behind me, my footsteps are footprints seeping darkness into the lacquered floor. In the house, audience silhouettes are illumined by hand-held black mirrors. I step…