Archivos de Categoría: I Version

1st Place Yuli from Israel came to visit last summer. I went to work. She went to Fenway Park from Ashmont – on foot. Through Codman Square, past the Boys & Girls Club where the cop car spends summer nights camped on the corner. Up Blue Hill Avenue smelling barbecue by the golf course. She […]

2nd Place Garlic. Red chili peppers. Sesame seed oil. These are the smells from my childhood, the memories of being twelve and sitting at the kitchen table, watching my mom slice firm tofu, julienne carrots, and sauté beef using fermented soy bean paste. When I first moved to Boston, I would go into Chinatown for […]

3rd Place Shawn cried the day the Red Sox finally won the World Series. His tears were for his father and grandfather who missed that glorious moment. They prayed for it every Opening Day at Fenway Park. They would don their jerseys, tally their scorecards and say, «This is the year!» They cursed the Bambino […]

Honorable Mention Men slap their dominoes hard on the picnic table. But they’re friends, they go way back, they’re not really mad, so it’s fine. Black girls with ponytails dipped in their mama’s shea buttered-hands push themselves into a sway, sway, sway on the swings. Their ponytails were clipped with red, white, blue, and black […]

Honorable Mention It’s a hole-in-the-wall on Harrison Street where she used to buy her food before her class. Nothing has changed. The most expensive sandwich still costs $4.50, cold cuts on toasted baguette with pâté, a stick of cucumber, shredded carrots. She asks, no fish sauce, a sprinkle of chopped jalapeno, and please cut it […]

Honorable Mention I don’t ask for Steven’s help, but it arrives. The roar of his snow blower cuts through the quiet white haze. He flings the fluff from the sidewalk in front of our house. I still don’t know his last name, or how he came to live in Jamaica Plain. A second, shriller roar […]

Honorable Mention My first date with Mike was a Jose Feliciano concert, who sang the Doors «Light My Fire.» After that, it was easy to ask him to my senior prom. I wore a pale peach gown, and Mike, a black tuxedo. We didn’t want the night to end, so we walked all over Brighton, […]

Honorable Mention The din of traffic rumbling over the Charlestown bridge rudely intruded into my lunch, but the breeze was cool off the Charles and I could see the masts on Old Ironsides just across the water. I leaned on the Harborwalk railing, exhaled and let my focus go soft. Looking down to lazily crumble […]

Honorable Mention Something horrific has happened. The sidewalks around Dewey Square teem with the dazed, the desperate, and the depressed. Most stream away quickly in search of relief. One man in a rumpled suit collapses on a bench, phone pressed to his ear, and tells his wife he won’t be home for supper and he […]

Honorable Mention There’s a group of men in their late 60’s who sit down at Cafe Mirror each morning to eat breakfast and solve the world’s problems. They talk sports, politics, family, and current events– and I learn more about Brighton overhearing snippets of their 6:45am conversations than I do from any other news source. […]