for Dean When I was barely twenty and hardly knew the solemnity of poetry and poets but knew the sense of it like a young girl knows the first flare of arousal in her body, I heard his big voice, thick...
Read MoreThis piece of writing started out as a story, at least that’s the way I initially thought about it. The story would be about three people – a couple and a widow – who share a table in an independent living...
Read More“In 1732, George Washington made no entry in his diary for three days after having partaken of the punch served at the hunting and fishing club known as The Fish House.” I glanced up from The Thirteen Colonies Cookbook, and...
Read MoreI believe in being proactive when it comes to health care. I schedule my annual mammogram on time, make sure I have a colonoscopy every few years, submit myself to the dermatologist’s scrutiny as he scans my body every six...
Read MoreI drove to my parents’ house forty miles south on a rainy November day. My mother’s call prompted the trip—one I had anticipated. She said she didn’t think it would be long until my father died. Essentially, if you want to say...
Read MoreRiding on the bus some June day riding through some steamy down-and-out metropolis, blocks and blocks of it; dirty streets, blasts of hot air assail us; it’s high noon all the time seems to be; we passengers slouch in the...
Read MoreThis sunny day not enough seeming transparent flimsy as a paper kite, it’s a pretense, a hoax; the sun’s a bright enough joke to poke through its evanescent scenery. Only one child under the bright sun plays alone in...
Read MoreHYDROTHERAPY GERALD KAMENS “Is this the Sea of Tranquility?” he yelled back to me, guffawing; “Hey, Ronald, you know where the actual sea’s located?” “Not a clue, Jake.” Jake was luxuriating in the large porcelain tub of warm...
Read MoreShe had been an undertaker’s wife for seven years. The mornings, she lay with her life projecting onto the back of her eyelids, between sheets that etched her skin with grains of foreign dirt. She bore witness to his livelihood...
Read MoreWho is he? I’m dead sure he didn’t graduate with us. Look. Standing behind him. Lola. How brave of her! I didn’t think she’d make it after our 45th. Who in the world— ninety degrees and wearing black. Look, there’s Irene. Yes,...
Read More–Black Hand Gorge, Central Ohio You left your clothes on a table rock jutting into the Licking River. At first glance they looked like a man as old skins look like snakes that sloughed them. There they lay...
Read MoreLong walk on the pier The cool ocean breeze blowing Refreshes my soul
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