It was a single word, written in shaky cursive on a yellow sticky note, stuck to an elderly man’s fridge. David was his name. Grandfather of Sam. PROUD grandfather of his only grandchild. Sam had gone to USC, worked hard to get...
Read MoreThe mirror of your smile Burns into my heart. When gazing into the mirror Of your smile, I see a somber Island where only the lonely Play games consisting of lifting The dead from their graves, Singing sad songs. Uninvited souls...
Read MoreWhen a solar-mass star runs out of fuel to burn . . . it swells in size and transforms into a red giant. . . it becomes increasingly unstable How will the Sun die? Set, sun, I’m tired of your demands. I understand your...
Read MoreEyes in front, I hunt. Eyes on side, I hide. –New Hampshire Division of Parks and Recreation A squirrel pretends not to notice me, minds his business, gnaws a nut. He’d make an excellent spy, observing sideways while...
Read MoreA lean red animal streaks across the field, over the road, and into the woods. Is it a fox? Its tail is thin; the poor beast has mange. I fear for it, pity its precarious existence. But can I change for it, nurse it in my...
Read MoreAlthough my brother’s seizures came without a pattern of frequency—sometimes two in a month and sometimes once a year—they always came at night. Mama would wake me after she had placed Cary in the passenger seat, guide me...
Read MoreWe played basketball in my driveway Drayton Plains and talked about LAND OF THE GIANTS. * But we moved to Rochester. * I picked up the student directory on the dresser below the wall phone. Found you in Hubbard Hall. Called, you...
Read MoreIs it a time for poetry? The right time? The time for the distillation of emotion and thought, of anger or love, adoration or hatred reduced to a few salient words? We have endured diatribes, words spilling like hot lava...
Read MoreThe responsibility lies with the ghosts who never lie down. The ghosts who tint the Sunday street or the Monday morning kitchen in the shades of having been there before, the déjà vu of it all. And I have been. There before....
Read More“Don’t I know you from somewhere?” The words sounded ridiculous coming out of his mouth; would’ve sounded ridiculous coming out of anybody’s mouth. There had to be a million ways to strike up a conversation, he’d defaulted to...
Read MoreLove as sure as the earth beneath our feet, willing to bear the heavy weight of years, not ever scrunched to dust though foot-trodden. Brown and unadorned by first light or shadow yet beautiful. Solid but fine enough to rub...
Read More“. . .but the hedgehog knows one big thing.” —Archilochus Wide open, each flower a purple mountain top, softly folded or sharply creased, that erupts abruptly upon a plain of tangled leaves. Sunlight becomes part of that...
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