Losing Miami

“Here, as elsewhere, Miami is ghosting. And if not from climatic fuckery and erosion, then by the heaving weight of The Thousands. Years? Tongues? People? Desires? Yes. ‘I designed this mystery to be heavy,’ writes Gabriel Ojeda-Sagué, whose beautifully disquieting Losing Miami swoons and sways from damp heat and Technicolor house paint. Flies, with their hundred side-eyes, twitch through these summer dreams. Meteorological phenomena swirl in the flesh and dating profiles of the collection’s coterie of Spanish, English, and Spanglish speakers. Yet, loss is the lingua franca that swallows them all. ‘I hate to admit it, but I’m not trying to make a change, I’m trying to grieve.” Even so, these tropic grotesques put me through changes.’ –Douglas Kearney