Sexy Coyote’s performance was a true highlight of the night, and despite a/v issues the band played on, their lead singer/keytarist at one point championing through the seated crowd and giving everyone a chance to punch the keys.
La Llorona, the vengeful ghost, now haunts the waters of drip-brewed beverages, furious that her loyal patrons were unfaithful. And for what? The best hot chocolate in Philly?
If the man he had driven was a ghost, what about the cat? It had vanished once inside the house and never reappeared. He had heard countless stories of wronged spirits lingering among the living, but never a ghost story about a pet.
I have accepted it—to live in forgetfulness of myself, For nothing here tries to remember me. I mean, each time I try to live here, the country calls me by a name, forgetfulness— Our ancestors were never called less of the earth and her world.
Alternating between the voices of expert bricklayers, hurt children, frank parents, and an omniscient third-person narrator who, in italics, ties the collection together, Mortar pushes past discomfort:
He insisted on going his own way. In a ferry made of stone. King of the mountain, he yodeled again and again. Snow is a hoax. Goats make good cheese. Bury me inblue.
No regrets, without all I would have never become the emotionally disturbed person who called herself Pantifesto’s Pornastic Phunhouse on MySpace where I was encouraged to do open-mics.