Sebastián Hasani Páramo

Mother brought shampoo bottles home, let us watch Tales from the Crypt when Dad was home, and hovered saint-like over our bed. I can only suppose she stepped into our room, her eyes overflowing...

In the shadows God is a stranger who stops me to say that car handles nicely. He says he made that BMW and its German engineering, and that the smoke stacks burn wood to keep this world warm.

All that happened years ago, and you're too stoned to see anybody else. You forget birthdays, and you look tall, and maybe it was a reunion, your birthday, that Fourth of July party, maybe there...

He kneels under the burden of flowers, but cannot feel their beauty. His yellow sling feels flimsy. Woman, stout & heavily garmented, holds steady - with strong arms the bounty of one - while...

You told me the story again how you shaped clay into a toy. I didn't believe you until I visited your childhood fields, and now I don't wonder anymore why you went to work for the grocer, a teenage...

Eight years old, I'm with Mom at our laundromat, a handful of quarters to keep us busy, a gumball machine, a knob that turns a Snickers bar, a can of store-brand root beer, a little wrestler in his...