Then later a roadrunner huddled on top of a rock, not quite perched but resting, waiting. In the huddle, its neck had been recalled into its body which left, as I viewed it from the front, the plump, round body of a bird that in such a pose looked more like a grouse or a large dove, its long and energetic legs also somehow stored away.

Growing up in South Korea, I vividly remember my family setting up a temporary shrine in the master bedroom once a year for the Lunar New Year. Especially vivid are my memories of my grandmother screaming at everyone—all the living people, that is—to get out of that room…

Since I left Cuba, Manhattan is the only place where I feel at home. The imperial splendor of La Habana―a city where time stands still since its revolutionary takeover of 1959―resonates effortlessly in Manhattan.

I am watching pipits as they sip from the exposed terminal end of a thin black plastic tube carrying water along an irrigation network serving the plants of a backyard desert landscape…

My wife would see the bird by itself, that bird always by itself. And she’d say, “Look, a gray heron.” I’d see the bird she was talking about. Maybe we’d be driving down the long driveway that leads to my parents’ house, which sits on a lake, and the bird would be standing watch on the point, looking out at the flatness of the water, keeping a vigil unto itself….

“I don't believe in a Platonic chair; a single stool upon which one might perch perfectly. I own a book called 1,000 Chairs which I peruse for fun from time to time. Given that I really don't even have room for any more chairs, why would I still look?”

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