Welcome to The RavensPerch

Miss Bulldog was the best. To see her exit her house, trot down the ramp from the porch and huff at the fence. To observe her ears move when the back door opened; see her turn and run back for all she was worth!           Breakfast! Breakfast! A woodpecker hammered on...

She was meticulous─ all four foot eleven of her tidy and compact. In her kitchen, every dish and utensil stood at attention, drying towels hung in uniformity. Looking back, I suspect I may have upset her perfectionist apple cart with my plus-size frame, chaotic...

With a quick flick of the wrist he snaps the crisp tablecloth into place and smooths the white linen's creases. This is his favorite time of day─ the lull before he greets throngs of famished guests who care less about wrinkles in a covering than the speed with which...

No modification necessary I was born perfect. My size nines do not fit in my husband’s palm but he never asked me to crush my bones and bind my feet for his pleasure, a past tradition of control. I could never erase the me I was conceived to be, witness my distinctive...

One of three poults he spurred our sympathy with his nightly limp across the lawn, always the last in a chorus line of five. We found his challenge endearing, his mother's patience merciful as she hung back while siblings romped free, splashing in the creek chasing...

Trauma defies the strongest adjectives, a verse unworthy of our lexicon. There’s history maneuvering behind the eye, a tree that’s lost it greenery, silhouettes heightening upon the evening grass, birds perching on the edge of life and as beloveds close their eyes and...

On nights a cloud would cover up the stars an autumn rain would spell out s-o-l-i-t-u-d-e on vacant windows, shadows looking out and taking note of you, their attitudes much sharper than the shifting shapes they took. The heavy tides extended past the sand,...

What keeps me here could be the morning birds, five pairs of wings ascending toward the sky without an explanation, trees now dumb without their cries or songs, a bird-less yard imprisoned with its August silences. What ties me to the world’s a yellow finch or cawing...

baby hold on I didn’t tell you you could go I need you here with me just a little bit longer to look in those eyes and know just what you’re thinkin’ to tell you one more time how much you mean to me baby hold on I didn’t tell you you could go I need you here with me...

I hold on, tight leaning in arms wrapped around you your hand on my thigh squeezing my leg in that way you do and I hear you laugh and let go coasting down no handed and as my head screams “Hold on!” my arms lift to float, too and in that moment of free fall we’re as...

memories float in unbidden like the one just now of when we’d lie on the couch, together feet to head and head to feet and you’d read to me from White Dragons I loved it most when the words made you cry because they touched your heart so deeply you tried to pull off...

please be brave enough to step into the tender space that grief creates and walk beside me these fragile days do not ask me what I need I do not know I only know that my heart is shattered and it's lonely trying to knit it back together on my own so just come and sit...