The Not-Wife
I pull the key from the ignition, replace my hands on the steering wheel, sit and stare at the windscreen. Tucked in, safe, away from the damp that arrived with spring.
Fog in the city. Fog in the hinterland. Fog in the head.
The Woman from the Other Side of the Moon
She seemed a fairly ordinary woman, The Woman from the Other Side of the Moon. She came into the coffee shop every afternoon around three and ordered one of two things: iced tea with lemon or a small coffee with room.
Quantum Solidarity: Making Hajj at Bear Lodge
The mind-numbing atrocities at home and abroad dare me to respond. It’s as if world events conspired to belittle me, taunting me to try to make sense of bloodbaths by religious extremists with death machines improvised or designed. Perhaps it’s this very feeling of alienation and impotence that fuels the rage behind the headlines.
The March Against Death
I was standing on the steps of the Lee Mansion looking down on the crowds crossing Memorial Bridge and beyond that Lincoln Memorial. The crowd split and went to either side of the Memorial. It looked like a million people though I’m sure it was much less.
The Bonsai Tree
A few months ago, I gave up on my office dracaena. I’ll admit, it had been having a rough time. Its leaves had all nearly fallen off, its stems soggy, its color faded. Truthfully, I had been thinking of letting it die for a while. Not just gradually either. I wanted it to suffer,
“To Braintree”, “To Bowdoin” and “To Lechmere”
If this train car were mine, I’d hang plants from the /
metal bars. I’d stain the windows—blue, yellow, /
pink, blue again, green. When I ride above this /
Dorchester, the orange sky will pour onto my white /
curtain lace, my stacks of books, my blushing skin.
“Dear Girl”, “Her Face” and “Yes I Am in High School”
Dear Girl,
You anxious broken queer girl.
You waterfall you crystal ball your future bright and clear, Girl.
Lips painted red, head high and proud, they’ll tremble as you near, Girl.
“The Charter Boats”, “Changing Time” and “Peace”
The boats string along the seam
of green and blue waters,
white mites on a fish vein,
trailing thin proboscides
that must be bitten to succeed.
“The Unliving Louis Jackson and Living Me”, “The Clouds Are Mountains” and “Shackles”
He lived a long life—a normal span of /
9 to 5 and bright eviction notices on front doors. /
He would tell his wife every night before bed, /
“I will wake up tomorrow and do better.”
“Potpourri”, “Capturing the Moment” and “City Bird Sounds”
Days like blossoms
Some, green buds
Reluctant to push away
The wooden bed frame
On which they rest
Me and the Milkman
Each morning at dawn, he would stealthily enter the house through the unlocked back door. In the early 1950s, no one in our neighborhood locked their doors. I was sometimes awakened by the tinkling noises of glass and the opening click of the refrigerator, but seldom by any human voice.
Negotiating the Narrows
Cold steel. I should have worn gloves. What I thought a shotgun blast turned out to be the massive metal hatch slammed shut by the wind. As I rose from the deck, another gust pushed me toward the edge like a hockey puck until I fell to my knees. When it passed, I forced myself to stand upright and join my friends. This was no place for a woman to look weak.
“Vow”, “Three Variations” and “November”
The doves find a spot
Of shade under a bench
And sit together, quietly
Speaking about the world
Of people and rain.
The Weight of the Words
Three stories up from the rue Vielle-du-Temple is a tomb. It was never intended to be so still, so empty, but life has a way of changing in an instant and so, it seems, do apartments. There is no body interred here. Only memories. Only echoes of laughter and whispers from a life once lived.
Angelus
Johnny gets up in the morning and goes straight to the bathroom that he shares with his mom, his two little sisters, an older brother that works at a bakery, and whoever else happens to be around on any given day. There is a stale smell to onions gone cold and greasy hamburger from Danny’s place that he ate last night. The leftovers are probably still somewhere in the room, but it is hard to tell with all the stuff lying around.
The Arachne Gene
He had a pocketful of possibilities scribbled on napkin backs. The perfect recipe was like DNA, it held the answer to who he was and where he was supposed to be. He wasn’t found yet, he was on his way, and he’d get there, wherever there was, if the bus driver didn’t kill them first.
Praying to the Porcelain God
Dani walks alongside M. Francoeur, who pushes his wheelchair, balancing on it as he would a walker. Today is her usual Saturday morning visit, and together they follow the oval footpath that surrounds the Mount Olive Senior’s Home, employing a pace similar to that of a wedding procession marching through molasses.
Every Silver Lining’s Got a Touch of Grey
Without knowing any of their music, I didn’t like Grateful Dead. Call it a mother’s instinct, call it blatant ignorance and close-mindedness, it must have played in my house for days, weeks, maybe months before I found the album cover under Second Daughter’s bed.
The Monsters of Our Minds
Kate concentrated on the jingling of the wind chimes. If she could hear the soft bell tones, their accidental melody, that meant she existed and was present on the solid earth, walking the pavement past the imposing Victorians. Alive in her body, here and now.
Simulation Theory
“There is no permanent self,” he’d whispered louder than he’d intended. It was only in that moment he finally became aware of himself, what he was doing, and that he never meant to say anything out loud at all.
5 Rules for the Problem Dog Owner
Small, dark, almond eyes blinking eagerly at me through the thin grid of fencing, a narrow head just reaching my knees, ears perked forward like twin radar dishes, his entire sleek, black body wobbling from side to side in an unthreatening display of welcome and happiness.
Driftwood
As a student at Northern Michigan University, I ran for hours on the wooded trails and the paved bike paths along the shores of Lake Superior in Marquette, Michigan, where driftwood accumulated on the sand. I wasn’t a collegiate athlete or even a competitive one. Running had nothing to do with school except for keeping me from studying.
Lonely in the City
The first week I moved to Manhattan, I was so excited I couldn’t eat. I lost two pounds and gained a Metrocard, an apartment sublet, and a new internship.
I was supposed to be living at home, working the same internship I’ve had since I was a college freshman—not out of loyalty, but out of love for my father.
Quilted Northern
Lying on a pile of blankets in my grandmother’s upstairs bedroom on a breezy, October night, I was feeling both chilly—the window was open to my left— and mentally exhausted after an eight-hour drive from our home in central Kentucky to western Pennsylvania. I rested beneath my grandmother’s patchwork quilt where my boyfriend Heath and I were bedded down. I clung to the warmth of the quilt, its scent a mix of musk and mothballs.