I look to my left, towards my neighbor on the shore. He’s a writer I recognize from the mainland, the author of Abuelita’s Ashes. It was well received, shortlisted for a few awards. He sees me. “Negrito! No pens, no paper. That’s the real punishment!”...

It’d been almost ten years since Officer Burrow—now Sergeant—arrested me for simple battery and underage consumption. I was seventeen and already an alcoholic, already a pimple-faced delinquent held together by a rage that would take decades to untangle...

New lamb, slick with amniotic fluid Clings to her old world She can’t bear the loss of that perfect roundness, of her delicate, self-sustaining planet...