I found a boat tied upat the water’s edge,rocking, rope frayed, oarsbanging in their locks. At home, you neverknew what mighthappen. A surprisea minute, they say. In the distancedark clouds, no traceof the other shore.It might have been wise to havebrought a compassand life jacket,to have packed a lunch.
We’d only just begun to scratch the floors with our own furniture, unfold the box flaps and hang the walls to look like our walls in the old apartment: familiar faces, fruits. Then we heard it, the long scrapes in deep grooves overhead. It came from the devil’s peak, after we’d turned the bedroom into the samedark as the…
Before she brought me forth, I wish she’d knownhow much more she’d need to take away, the momI knew marooned in Alabama. Moves to MS, FL,and TN, and she can’t return without a flat tire,financial fiasco, old lovers making pilgrimagewho could undo the curse but instead scrape offthe lonely single dad veneer, let kindnesses findtheir…
We found the cardinal nearthe bird feeder: stiff, eyes fixed, wearing the brightest red coatof any bird I’ve seen this summer. With a shovel I lift him from the dirt,show him to my daughter who gazes upon the orange bill, the rigored body,leans in close enough to touch. Was it raptured? Preyed upon?Could we have…
I search online for causes and find that most are tied to loss.A child, a parent, a friend, regret. For me, the I is lost. The most awful things happen hours after a session, not anotherfor a week or two. The Therapy Curse, I call it, covering the years I’ve lost. Sometimes I see angels,…
He’s wearing two watches,one set to the local time in New York,the other in Gaza. In a café with friends,waiting for his tea at the round table,and whenever his eyes fallon the dial of the Gaza watch, he can see the kidsof his Gaza neighborhood running in the alleys,girls playing hopscotch, boysplaying soccer. At night,…
Neighbors smuggle the sunthrough tunnelsbeneath the houses.The smoke of bombsdropped from the F-16shas covered the city’s sky.
At my first history class,the only students attendingare the future, the present, and the past.As I step in, the future gets ready to leave,while the past straddles the present,handcuffing it,severing its hamstrings,and dyeing its clothes gray.
She did not play horsey on the hardwoodfloor. She did not neigh, nor did she whinny.She had some things she wanted to write down:something about her father and his gunsand his alcohol and her trite love for himthat never got to pale in comparisonto the blooming chest-fire she would have feltif she ever held her…
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