Marriage

The Good End of Pleasant Street

Sun, 31 May 2026 15:00:00 -0400

When our landlords came by to introduce themselves, they stood beside a shelf of our books on how to avoid suffering: “Develop a mind that clings to nothing,” said the Buddhist Diamond Sutra; Be Here Now, read the spine of a Ram Dass book. Dan was a general contractor and wore a flat cap and a half grin. Or a sneer. I wasn’t sure which.

Milk

Sun, 31 May 2026 11:00:00 -0400

Pumped for an infant, spilled at the dinner table, used as a tear gas antidote

Practicing

Thu, 30 Apr 2026 11:00:00 -0400

Taking piano lessons, learning to speak Russian, seeking enlightenment

Separation

Thu, 30 Apr 2026 11:00:00 -0400

There is a dead snake on the cracked road. My son says it’s not a dead snake. He says the snake has just shed its skin and left it there.

Boxer’s Fracture

Thu, 30 Apr 2026 11:00:00 -0400

My mother once put her fist / through drywall, nothing fractured // but that already-broken home, / a little more of her spirit and ours.

Bars

Tue, 31 Mar 2026 10:00:00 -0400

On a playground, at a gymnastics meet, over an apartment window

Practice Losing Everything

Tue, 31 Mar 2026 10:00:00 -0400

I challenged my students to interrogate their own religious inheritance, and I spoke frequently of the “ethics of faith.” I asked whether they’d arrived at faith through honest inquiry or by suppressing their doubts.

Four of Cups

Tue, 31 Mar 2026 10:00:00 -0400

Maybe it was a mistake choosing such a solemn and contemplative place. Raising your voice above a whisper feels like an intrusion. The entrance branches into different rooms, leading you through multiple cultures and eras. You can move through time, follow the various paths available to you. You pick a direction and go.

The Trouble with Pillows

michaelmark3@gmail.com — Tue, 31 Mar 2026 10:00:00 -0400

She needs one medium / and a soft. He’s a soft.

A Conversation with My Father

Tue, 31 Mar 2026 10:00:00 -0400

You could make things up that actually felt more like truth, somehow. You could build a world so precise that other people started to believe it, too. And if you didn’t believe the things my dad said, he’d find a way to make you.

Pockets

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 12:00:00 -0500

Shoplifting cigarettes, running the pool table, creating a “pocket prairie”

The Night I Don't Remember

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 12:00:00 -0500

It doesn’t matter how many AA meetings you go to. As long as you are taking oxycodone and oxymorphone, you’re going to be high, and, as long as you have complex regional pain syndrome, you’re going to be taking something serious for the pain.

Nicknames

Sat, 31 Jan 2026 12:00:00 -0500

Get to know Boxcar Betty, Stick Dick, Lali, and the Cajun Asian

Lasciare Stare

Sat, 31 Jan 2026 12:00:00 -0500

My father took a puff from his Camel / and dispatched his message / in smoky cursive, Lasciare stare, / then said it again softly

Stirring the Pot

Wed, 31 Dec 2025 12:00:00 -0500

Leading a strike, starting trouble between sisters, feeding strangers

Waterfall

Wed, 31 Dec 2025 12:00:00 -0500

Sex, to me, was like a solvent, cutting through layers of everyday grime. Without it, irritations accumulated with no way of wiping the slate clean; disappointment coagulated into distress. I felt forlorn, restless, and disconnected. Yet no matter how many times I sounded the alarm, my husband never seemed to hear me.

I Always Wanted a Wife

Wed, 31 Dec 2025 12:00:00 -0500

I didn’t mean to / eat your berries, he’d sing after eating / all the blackberries I’d been saving / for breakfast, and I couldn’t be mad then / because he’d made me laugh.

Don’t Be Alarmed

Sun, 30 Nov 2025 12:00:00 -0500

After her third glass of wine, Beatrice got up to look at Bert and Martin’s wedding photo, the one with the understated silver frame and the two of them making out like teenagers, Martin’s leg wrapped around Bert’s thigh. It was supposed to be a joke, but they ended up liking it. She stared at it and thought, This was the man I thought I was spending my life with.

House Hunting

Sun, 30 Nov 2025 12:00:00 -0500

Our sordid credit history seems to sadden more than shock her. Such nice people, she must be thinking. How do these things happen?

On Walking

Sun, 30 Nov 2025 12:00:00 -0500

To love walking is to love the body, and this has been a barrier for me. Walking requires us to be a physical presence moving in a physical space. Your body is on display, with all its jostling parts and creaky joints. I know it’s vanity—this self-consciousness, this awareness of other people’s eyes—but it was something I shouldered when I walked, something that made me seek the comfort of a climate-controlled car.

Celebrating

Sun, 30 Nov 2025 11:00:00 -0500

A fiftieth anniversary in Paris, a COVID Christmas in April, a first birthday in America

Pinkie Masters

Sun, 30 Nov 2025 11:00:00 -0500

A good scare can cure anything, she says. / We nod, and I thank her but insist / on holding my breath all night.

Wild Animals

Fri, 31 Oct 2025 12:00:00 -0400

Swimming with whale sharks, hearing a mountain lion, refusing to eat a snake

The Childless Aunt

Fri, 31 Oct 2025 12:00:00 -0400

Though a faint hope that I might yet conceive continued to smolder in the back of my mind, at some point it dawned on me that none of these joys and trials I wished for myself were exclusive to biological parents. I could love any child who needed me.

The Lonesomest Sound in the World

Fri, 31 Oct 2025 12:00:00 -0400

When the kids came to school, we tortured them because they smelled and wore the same clothes every day, until they just shut down, not even looking at us after a while, never raising their hands, never saying a word.

The Cat Who Woke Me Up

Tue, 30 Sep 2025 12:00:00 -0400

The hierarchy that places humans above cats has broken down. I know, in a way I once didn’t, that cats and dogs and birds and bees and every living creature are conscious in a way that’s too hard for most of us to acknowledge. We’re all a bunch of narcissists who imagine that no life-form is quite as appealing as this one we call human. We’re unable to share the stage unless the animals are the supporting players.

Getting Dressed

Sun, 31 Aug 2025 12:00:00 -0400

Sleeping in uniform, layering against the cold, wearing your spouse’s jeans

Red Desert

Sun, 31 Aug 2025 12:00:00 -0400

Sometimes I think of my early years of living in the city, that watery phase of life when you don’t plan beyond the next week, or even the next day, and every new connection is imbued with promise.

On Wheels

Sun, 31 Aug 2025 12:00:00 -0400

Last summer I took a free one-day course in nearby Philadelphia for adults who wanted to learn to ride a bike. The incident that finally pushed me over the edge was when my eight-year-old niece was riding in circles around me, baffled by my inability to do the same. She asked why I was afraid to do something so easy. And I was afraid: Of falling. Of looking foolish. Of struggling to even get on the seat at a public park and then throwing a tantrum while some teens recorded me on their phones. Mostly I was afraid of finding out how limited I really am.

There, Here, Jazz

Thu, 31 Jul 2025 12:00:00 -0400

The first time I walked into our new old house, it was the light / that surprised me—how much of it fell through the four windows / facing south and landed wide across the floorboards . . .