MICRO

Los Angeles Wreckage

By ALESSANDRA CASTELLANOS | 28 FEB 2018

By Viviane Sassen — Mustang, Courtesy of Juan Luis

She was born in Guatemala. She insists we watch shows set in Los Angeles. In her Mustang, she followed a mechanic to New York, Denver, and Chicago, cracked open her bones for him and melted back into Los Angeles. When she dies, she will die Los Angeles, her cartilage has earned it.

A Los Angeles native, Alessandra R. Castellanos writes poetry, fiction and memoir that draw upon her vibrant and tenacious ancestral heritage in Guatemala and California. Her conjured worlds encompass feral spirits, otherworldly legends, and the disconcerting realities of domestic workers in Hollywood celebrity homes. Her work has appeared in Drunken Boat, Chaparral, The Round, and Duende among others. Castellanos is a student of the Method Writing Approach taught by Jack Grapes, a member of the Los Angeles Poets and Writers Collective and a graduate of California State University, Northridge. Aside from writing, Castellanos loves watching movies over and over again with her dog Nola, a rare breed of wolf-bear. For more please visit www.alessandracastellanos.com.

MICRO

La Jungla

By NANCY JOOYOUN KIM

My mother was one of a few Koreans in an area of mostly Latinos, who worked
under the metal roof of an abandoned warehouse converted into a shopping
emporium—car stereos, healing potions, sneakers, gold jewelry, toys.

POETRY

MY MOTHER AND THE BOTTLE

By JAZ SUFI

Here is when I hear its syncopated hatching.
I see the blood and think it wine,
I wonder if she will lick it from the floor,
suck the dye back out from the egg.

MICRO

West Coast:

By FRED PELZER

What friends you have usually just wind up dead or so I hear.