Hold On To Me,
Sunlit Beauty,
and Rose Petals and Golden Wings

Kai Lee is sixteen. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, she arrives at nine o’clock for her job at the Read-On Paper Bookstore. The morning mall walkers pass her, usually on their last loop or two. Sometimes they’ve finished and are heading into the food court. Wherever they are, they say, “Good morning, Kai,” in cheerful unison.

The black sequin jacket was heavy, which I wasn’t expecting, maybe because I’d only seen sequins on television, on long dresses that sparkled under spotlights, like on the Judy Garland Show. Our jackets had broad satin lapels and tails that reached past the backs of our knees

Writing saved her.
Words strung together, forming a lifeline to pull her from the deepest, darkest, swirling waters of heartbreak and despair.
Phrases came to her, as if divinely inspired during moments of trying her best to think of anything but the confusing sting of betrayal.

Look, mom! The little yellow bird is back!
my littlest one cries, she, who is not yet too old for wonder.
The bird yellow like a shadowed daisy,
bigger than a hummingbird but so tiny, delicate…

The Justices’ conference room, ordinarily the witness to judicial sparring, now became the battlefield for a newspaper war. Justice Stephen Field led the first charge, greeting his colleagues the day after the election with The New-York Sun, whose bold headline declared “TILDEN IS ELECTED. THE DEMOCRATS JUBILANT.”

Catherine lives in a unit, surrounded by other Mercy nuns. I meander through the rose garden to reach her front door. One of the neighbouring nuns is pruning a rose bush in their shared garden. Above, the blue sky is streaked with white clouds.

I ached for dreams that galloped
through my head long ago—
fever dreams of Paul and George,
flying like Superman, in a red cape…

Aug 13, Saturday, 11:05 p.m.
Edelweiss, Edelweiss… every morning you greet me…
Captain von Trapp sang the song on loop on the tavern’s stereo, and Mario, mop in hand, apron tied around his ample midriff, sang along, as was his nightly routine at Tavern Edelweiss in Calangute, Goa.

After your world ends, she asks you if you want to disappear. All I want is to disappear, you say. Let me buy your ticket, she says. You don’t let her. You buy your own ticket. No. Your dad buys it for you. He’s worried. He wants to help, somehow.

The morning after the upheaval of the night protests, the city was surreally quiet. Waking in the parking garage, Eleanor lifted herself out of the nest of old coats and her backpack on the floor of the backseat. As she drove away from the one sanctuary she could think of as streets were shut down, Eleanor saw evidence of the night’s violence in the strewn litter, broken glass, and the watchful police presence.

Joy has large and small containers as in the aftermath of a welcoming in-person chair yoga class
I hear Led Zeppelin acoustic ballads on the car radio while driving home from Lenox town to the
grace of a solitary chickadee’s contented melody from a rooftop as I pass below while walking.

Overlooking the fields, older than the oldest residents of the town, is a juniper tree. It is too respected to be felled, standing like a lonely sentry as the fields are seeded, tended to, and emptied of their bounty. Though the peasants live on the land, they have no rights to it.

They had arrived at the airport late, which is to say, only forty minutes early — something he’d blamed Susan for, even though he was the one who’d decided to pack another suitcase in the morning — so the moment they passed the security check, they broke into a run.

We are the best of friends who, but for the whim of fate, might never have met. I would like to say that we grew up together, but that would only be the truth if we started growing up after our fiftieth birthdays

One heart one bod
experience at first handsy
escalating intimacy

They are like yellow eyes staring from the buttered skillet. Their centers are slightly runny, their whites sizzle softly, and they never stick to the pan.
There is no question of how she would prepare them.

Can you picture it?
Could you make the leap if I asked politely?
Cruising through the interstate, one hand on the wheel, the other on my thigh,
Can you feel that rush, that high?

As always, Monday morning hit me like a shock wave, rudely interrupting whatever dreams I was having. The dreams rarely left me with detailed memories, only a few faint glimpses of somewhere I had never been and people I hardly knew.

This year’s Welcome back meeting following the summer break was different. It included a detailed presentation on Generation A.I. Looking around the auditorium, it seemed many other teachers were anxious too. This was our first and only official orientation for this new generation of students.

Sucks all the helium he can
to escape the blood hound on his tail
for petty thievery & having too much fun.