Sublime

I felt as if I were untethered from the earth. Odysseus was gone, and Penelope was here, and I must make her broth.

The Vietnamese I own is the one you gave me, the one whose diction and syntax reach only the second-grade level.

atavistic

Each of them knows innumerable minute, local truths.

child, often the smallest or weakest of the flock, as I was, is named after the most despicable things: demon, ghost child, pig snout, monkey-born, buffalo head, bastard—little dog being the more tender one. Because evil spirits, roaming the land for healthy, beautiful children, would hear the name of something hideous and ghastly being called in f

Luau

Then lifting the eagle feather, he said: “This means Wakon Tonka5 (the Great Mysterious One); and it also means that our thoughts should rise high as the eagles do.” Then, lifting the strip of buffalo hide, he said: “This means all the good things of this world—food and shelter.” Handing the ornament to me, he said: “My friend, I wish you all these