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By the lighthouse, my face:
curled shimmer
on the whorl of a shell.
A shell’s cavity, not mine—
its murmur, like weather gathering into your hearing,
not mine, never mine—
a thought of sea followed by the question of land.
*
Shoal end juts out—
a leg severed. Rock wall and water wall.
Prove to me
you are animate:
drive this spade into sand. (Skin, chafing,
reddens—
all the color there is.)
*
In my throat—
salt, salt, salt, and the asking …

Miguel Figueroa is director of the Center for the Future of Libraries, an initiative of the American Library Association examining innovation in libraries and the communities they serve. Before participating in the Zócalo/WeHo Reads event “Do Libraries Have a Future?”, he sat down in the Zócalo green room and shared one of his earliest memories around books and libraries—which involves a missing library book.
 
Q: What …

Twenty years ago, when millions of people were displaced by a storm like Hurricane Matthew, we’d see convoys of temporary trailers being towed into stricken areas to shelter the newly homeless. We’d hear appeals for donations from charities like the Salvation Army and the American Red Cross. And we’d be impressed with stories of neighbors and rescuers pitching in to help the unfortunate.
In the …

Democracy killed a bid to bring the Olympics to Hamburg, Germany, where I live. But in the process, the Olympics dealt a big blow to our local democracy.
I’ve worked on democratic issues, especially direct democracy, both as a journalist and an activist, for most of my adult life. I grew up in Bavaria, where direct democracy has been part of local governance since 1946. But …

I came to Perris, a small town in Riverside County, more than two decades ago from the island province of Bohol in the Philippines. As much as I would have loved to remain in my country, in September 1994, I immigrated to America to follow my wife Agnes. On the first day, I already missed the family and friends I left behind—I didn’t know it …

I grew up Fresno, but I fled as fast as I could. With its agriculturalist roots, the local political culture was narrated through the lens of rugged individualist ideals and social conservatism. But while the social and political culture felt oppressive (especially to an existentialist queer teenager), back in 1980, the city still functioned rather well. No one went through your garbage at night and …

When you’ve lived in a town for a long time, you have the idea that everyone thinks and knows the same things because we all live in the same little community. But that’s not true—some live in different parts of town; they’ve seen different things; they remember different things. In my town it took something big to lead me to this realization—a mountain of trash.
I …

I first visited Obaidullah at Guantánamo Bay in the spring of 2009. Before that first meeting, all I knew were the disturbing accusations against him, that he had fired his last habeas attorney, and that I wasn’t sure why.
Prior to the visit, my family and colleagues were supportive. When I confessed to a close friend that I was nervous, he said, “Time to get …

I live in a forgotten region. Most Californians, if they know the Central Valley exists, forget it when they think of the state as a whole. Those that have been there often simply drive through it on their way to Yosemite. Very few actually visit this region. Perhaps the simple reason is that it offers up a direct contrast to the mythical California of sunlit …

Neither the foster care clinic room nor my teen patient was typical. The ocean-blue walls were covered with a marine mural with a Rastafarian sea god on one wall and a blond surfer girl catching a foamy white wave on the other. Seventeen-year-old MT was obese and laden, not so much by her size but by the visible pain in her eyes. Yet she was …