“And George,” Curtis had called up to him earlier that night, from his seat in the first row, as George appeared from behind a wing, “Just remember, when you enter the stage with your nephew, to lean down on your cane the way we showed you.” No, they weren’t actually in the Ukraine, he knew. Instead, they were all sitting around the long dark wood table toward the left side (audience view) of a large stage in a Northern Virginia theater.
Read MoreI realize I haven’t mentioned my ex-husband again in the past 722 words. Literally. I counted. I’d consider another metaphor here, perhaps for the sake of clarity, or closure, but I’ve given him enough words already.
Read MoreParis holds too much loveliness for a lifetime. I know too well though that one can suffocate on saints, the single breast, the virgins and graces. Understand that to survive you will have to return to this city again and again for as long as you can, as long as Americans are welcome.
Read MoreWe lived in the country, my wife and I, for nearly thirty-two years, Lake Wilson Road, Hillsdale, Michigan. The address was 2220 when we bought the house and stayed that way for a good number of years until I needed to go to the county court house for a building permit.
Read MoreGive me back my ridiculous ignorance
dangling toward dark.
I wait for you under streetlights
The doctor talks to me about myopia, about the mysteries
of light and life, this little woman hardly taller than a child
but with a seer’s knowledge of the future
Shhh!
Don’t speak
For the world is fast asleep
A slumber so thick
So smooth
It drips like honey
Over every rooftop
Until each city contributes
To the same golden masterpiece
Colored with beautiful, long-awaited serenity
somewhere, beyond the sea, Telemachus is waiting
– his body rests
– but there is always this movement
– this coming-forth-out-of
Dad, staring stiff-necked into the forlorn
radius of headlight beams on empty two-lane,
drives the family of five, weary and taciturn
And sometimes, even now, on sultry nights,
your neighbors hear your Skylark open throttle
roaring past like some enraged Ferrari
and screeching to a stop beside your gate.
When I was a little boy it seems
wildflowers grew to teach me the
colors they forgot to put into
my orange crayola twelve pack.
At the odd moment, wind calls
through an open field or
from around the corner of
some bare-boned house
