One timber piling remains of our dock washed away during the last hurricane. An unmoored sailboat, ripped along its hull, came to rest on a bed of oyster shoals and leaned precariously against the bared sea wall for months until...
Read MoreI walk in fluff though it’s harder, more struggle with its sinkings and evaporations, language of acceptance and obliteration. Juxtaposed dunes and waves create a geometry of expectations and adjustments in my body, reveal my...
Read MoreMy daughter has my hurt in her. She lives with it better than I did. I hid it, softened it, made it acceptable, and then called my compromise a success. An achievement of normal. She faces it, endures it, mocks it by parody,...
Read More(After “Nothing But Death” by Pablo Neruda) There are people who die surrounded by loved ones and others die alone to shiver in their own fearful inquiry. Standing here at the cusp of a rolling hill cemetery, survivors and I...
Read MoreDedicated to Pablo Neruda You speak of your troubled beginnings as if your life forged in iron made you the mess you’ve become, but I don’t see that in your mirror— or the powerfully passionate poems you’ve created on the knees...
Read MoreI can’t walk along South Ferry without looking for the green umbrella. I picture it lying in the street, awkwardly bent, the rain beading like opals on the torn nylon. It had been pouring that day; one of those humid August...
Read MoreIt was happening again. This time it was my mom. I knew she was dying. Suddenly she was losing all of her faculties, mental as well as physical. She had fallen a couple of times and was too weak to get up. And sometimes she...
Read MoreDespite the indomitable nature of many species, this cannot save them from the prodding lurk of man. Levi Compson understood this inequity as his family scouted over the Altamaha River—wading with sticks—prodding the shallows...
Read MoreTrying to learn patience and delay gratification on this quiet Sunday, I sit on the wood deck near the pond, dusk infused with fragrant Osmanthus. Thirsty squirrels take last sips from the edge. Blue jays make a sleepy ruffle in...
Read MoreNot quite awake, I prepare morning coffee. Two wires stick out from the basket holding a dark roast. I pull…a moth, just a slight struggle in my fingertips, then wriggles to the floor. An ordinary clothes moth so much like the...
Read MoreNot quite awake, I prepare morning coffee. Two wires stick out from the basket holding a dark roast. I pull…a moth, just a slight struggle in my fingertips, then wriggles to the floor. An ordinary clothes moth so much like the...
Read More~A Ghazal On my desk: gooseneck lamp, old Underwood portable, scratch pad looking for one good line. Imagine a pungent swamp, still water, slick mud speckled amphibians, humidity, crepuscular light. Hearts break or harden but...
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