Like Paul in the Bible you said. No morethe Chad we knew. Can’t call it a surprise.You never stuck with anything for long. LittleLeague teams or foster homes where others quicklyfilled your place. It’s only fitting for “Paul” to havea new wife, kids. School district free from skidmarks you left from a burnout in front of…
surprise: “Hear that off-key trill? Be still, my heart,”she whispers just before she belts out heraria and it’s like God is right therebefore her in the vision of her sweetheartrising from the grave. At the premiere, her partwas played by soprano Malvina Schnorrvon Carolsfeld; Tristan, by Ludwig Schnorrvon Carolsfeld, who would soon departfrom this world…
Let’s start at the very beginning.A very good place to start. Nothing but a hum. That’s howit goes. Expecting a thought, getting an ellipsis. In the morningmy son thrills at flipping the light on, then off, then on, then off again.Shrieks of joy, then on to the next adventure. Jump-starterof sparks. Where is the light?…
When sadness settlesin, more intractable than usual—when it takes more pains to make itselfknown— I tell my sisters not to worry.I will garden the sadness away. I decideon a raised bed, staining the cedar planksI stack into walls that form a newlack. I order loam and compostthe man with the pickup calls gorgeous. Do we…
Long before Francis,St. Isaac of Syria welcomed creaturesgreat and small. My kind of saint,he said that Hell might not last—Godcould end it. What if Isaachad stepped in, held his hand upto my father, said No! Stop! Would Istill be this tree split by lightning,sending out shoots of greenagainst all odds?
1. Shea Stadium In my twenties I used to go to the occasional afternoon game at Shea Stadium. Sometimes the Mets won. Once I ordered a hot dog. The guy next to me, handing my money to the vendor and the hot dog to me in a classic example of the chiasmus, said, “You know,…
Whose rooftops droop like power lines and tiltingstovepipes cough fibrils of smoke from failing firesthat haven’t given heat since Mondale lost. I knowthe faded NASCAR signs, the velvet robes of carcasses on deer hoists in bow season, and window shades handmade from sheets.This place of Cheez Whiz and knockoff pop.This place where cars on blocksarchitect strange piles in…
We pretended not to see him weeping, the fogclotted in his throat. His filthy coat. Someunforeseen disaster always coming for him.He often went missing, fell asleep in the snow.How could we know? We triednot to see him, flinching at the sun, at whateverloomed above him. The fist of the fathercoming down hard on the head…
A polite town. The mountainswearing purple for our pleasure, clouds holding their snowy breathso everyone’s clueless parentscould get home safe from work.“I’m gonna die here,” Shauna says, her head up against the chain-linksuch that when she angles to catch mein her periphery there’s a red X indented in her brow like a responseon a test,…
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