Merida is a city of about a million people, with thousands of expats living in and around it. I’ve heard all sorts of expat numbers and don’t know which is true, but yes, definitely thousands. There is an area in town so densely populated by expats it’s called Gringo Gulch (affectionately, one hopes) and at [...]

  Table of Contents     In Other Words: Merida    Vol 1, Issue 2   Around and About In This Issue Mayan Poems by Feliciano Sánchez Chan Translated from  Spanish to English by Jonathan Harrington  An Interview with Sean Hennessy by Julie Stewart The Polo Affair, fiction by Sean Hennessy Three poems by Sheila Lanham EnTrance Your [...]

Translations to English from Spanish by Jonathan Harrington  First Dream (The Beginning)  I am the Sacred Ceiba Tree (the Kapok) from which your children will dangle like fruit, Mother, if you claim them before their seeds ripen.   I am the vertebra that unites the thirteen canopies of heaven and the nine levels of the [...]

  by Julie Stewart Sean Hennessy has lived in Merida for five years. Owner of a popular local restaurant, last year he also managed to squeeze in the penning of a 370-page thriller titled The Polo Affair, which has been described as “gripping”  and “entertaining.”   You play polo, renovate houses, are a former model, [...]

The Polo Affair ONE A feisty evening breeze blows off the Caribbean coast as David pulls up to Cancun International Airport, Terminal 2. Like all resort cities, it’s easy to pick out the arriving visitor from the departing—the white and pasty from the burnt and toasted. The airport always makes him glad he’s neither, rather [...]

  EnTrance   sitting alone a simple Modigliani woman in a red hat staring out of the pyramid straight-back chair stars rotating halo silence feet stamping dust quakes hands shaping the air into a perfect form vessel man pouring prayer shaking hollow space leading eyes around like bats swarming the temple at night shivering possession [...]

LITTLE CAESAR’S MOTEL ROOM The ad, announcing the arrival of a rep from “highly renowned publishing firm, WhetherVain Press,”  appeared between the obituaries and supermarket ads in the paper. But somehow it spoke to me as a “young author;” they wanted me, “needed” me. The motel: Autorama Motel, Ozone Park, near JFK. Not exactly rundown. [...]

Forgiveness is a Small Boat   You were       almost        A silk-worms’ favorite leaf Once   Almost          delicate   Slender wristed As the throat of those orchids We talked about planting at Christmas   But you could never catch rain        That’s how I knew we were doomed   The heart is a drunken [...]

 A WORM FROM ANOTHER GALAXY “You’re in that other galaxy,” I say. Nicola has a fragment of a smile on her face until she looks at me and realizes I’ve spoken. “I know you didn’t hear me.  I’ll repeat it.  You have a whole separate universe inside your head, complete with conversations and street names.” [...]

   Heart Emoticons in the Moonglades   Poon pregret is the signature position of the nigh-immortal half elf/half octopus Bitch Queen of Hell.   All druids are welcomed into the sacred lands of the coprophageous level 44 night-noodling mongoloids.   Level 44 blood elf mages are sewed down the anus, ready to burst, and give [...]

Waiting for Answers I never minded when Jonah made up my mind. He was cool. I wasn’t. I understood cool. I recognized cool, but I couldn’t pull off cool. The thing about Jonah was, that even though he knew he was cool and knew that I was not ever going to be cool, he was [...]

  Guaymas Turtle Hunters   All night forced to listen to the dry gasp and wheeze of the dying turtles.   In the back of the dusty red pick-up truck, a writhing pyramid of floundering flippers, dry throats and gaping beaks.   It was all they had to protest with— those almost human-sounding sighs.   [...]

How I Developed Theoretical Thinking Air the texture of cotton is difficult to breathe.  I made it outside before the walls caved in and what I noticed first was my incredible inability to breathe.  The cotton balls, I mean.  I stumbled forward, lurching onto the grass, and then there were these godawful people, running toward [...]

- ABIDE AND ABODE –                  (Suenos) …Would spawn gamboling a fabulous house!, of stone and glass and Jakarta teak… at the hill of a roaming meadow set in turquoise and lavender Echinacea, silvestre susans and Girasoles,   on a Summer pond, a visage to the Promethean Autumn, [...]

  Angel There was an angel standing in the parking lot. The edge of her white dress was dragging on the pavement, soaking up oil. She bent forward to see herself in a rearview mirror so she could fix her hair. A couple of teenagers stood under the streetlight, arguing. It was late and the [...]

The God of Beer After the thing, she was with sixty men in the next 18 months, or does that seem like a lot. what if she didn’t count the one weekend she had three, three doctoral candidates in archeology, one friday and saturday, technically all on saturday, twenty-two hours, because that sunday she went [...]

  Harbour of Dreams   Within the psyche of most human beings, Between adolescence and senility, Exists a harbour of dreams – One place, real or imaginary, To which one can travel Telepathically, instantaneously, In times of stress or dismay – A safe place, far from the moment In which we find ourselves. In adolescence, [...]