Exercise

Practicing

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

Taking piano lessons, learning to speak Russian, seeking enlightenment

My Bowstring Heart

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

On the field I was all animal instinct and brute force—a bruiser, a bone breaker. Every tackle was a rebuke against a life where fathers die. When I played rugby, I wasn’t a broke, lost little girl. I wasn’t a struggling amateur writer. I had goals. I was a winner. I was MVP. I was someone.

A Thousand Words

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

A Thousand Words features photography so rich with narrative that it tells a story all on its own.

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.

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.

On Wheels

Tue, 06 May 2025 14:54:21 -0400

Run Home

Mon, 31 Jul 2023 04:05:00 -0400

Long-distance running is the dogged refusal to bend to the way you feel. It is the accommodation of pain. If you run long enough, far enough, fast enough, you will carve out a place in yourself where pain can live.

The Strong, Silent Type

Tue, 28 Feb 2023 05:00:00 -0500

Risak: How is the “masculine body” defined?

Siegel: In the U.S. we typically see a mesomorphic ideal: lean, muscular, and with a low body-fat percentage. This is persistent across the U.S. and common in LGBTQ+ communities in particular. Sexual-minority men are at elevated risk for eating disorders due in part to the lean ideal being perpetuated in their communities.

Preparations

Fri, 30 Sep 2022 04:00:00 -0400

You can prepare for some things. / Others fall on you like / meteors ripping open the sky.

Love Running

Fri, 01 Mar 2019 00:00:00 -0500

Running is better for me than church; better than counseling, pills, or meditation; better than diet plans or twelve-step meetings. Running keeps me literally on the straight and narrow.

An Image Of Godliness

Tue, 01 Jul 2014 00:00:00 -0400

Like the Turin shroud with / its image of godliness, / her yoga mat holds / the tattoo of her body, each pose / immortalized by a particular / indentation, a stain of perspiration.

Summit Fever

Wed, 01 Jan 2014 00:00:00 -0500

Impossibly bright stars fill the sky like silver glitter sprayed from a fire hose. And, to our good fortune, we’ve chosen to climb on the night of the summer’s largest meteor shower. Each shooting star is like a Roman candle.

Do You Know How Much I Love You?

Sat, 01 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0500

We lived in a small yellow three-bedroom ranch on a dead-end street with no circle to turn around in: the street just ended. I had my own room, and my younger sister, Jody, had hers. There were big bay windows in front and a deck off the back, and my father built the house himself.

No Sweat

Sat, 01 May 2010 00:00:00 -0400

Standing at the entrance to the aerobics room, I think, All I have to do is get through the next forty-five minutes. I tell myself that kickboxing sounds like fun, not dreadful or boring. I chose kickboxing because it resembles martial arts — something I studied briefly in the past.

Selected Poems

Mon, 01 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0500

— from “A Pittsburgh Poem” | Imagine a man in a hat on a street early one morning in autumn. / This is my grandfather on his way to work at the brokerage firm. / He is a treasurer. He takes the bus down from the southern hills. / It is October 28, 1929.

My Vertigo

Mon, 01 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0400

My vertigo came on suddenly. It was past midnight, and I was listening to Coltrane for Lovers and doing the dishes when I began to wobble.

Sunbeams

Tue, 01 Jun 2004 00:55:00 -0400

Perhaps the truth depends on a walk around the lake.

Wallace Stevens

Two Minutes

Thu, 01 Jan 2004 00:05:00 -0500

I met my boyfriend through the personals. His ad said that he was looking for a woman who was “athletic.” I assumed that was a code word for “thin.” After we’d been dating for several months, he told me I was wrong, that “athletic” had actually meant athletic.

Selected Poems

Sun, 01 Oct 2000 00:00:00 -0400

Palm Sunday

Sat, 01 Jul 2000 03:00:00 -0400

Two days ago, I reduced myself to a sturdy hobble by learning to jump rope. Never in my youth did I jump rope. Where I come from, males did not even consider it, except behind the walls of gymnasiums, and then only with the ultimate goal of pummeling an opponent in mind. But I’m a long way from youth now, and, having become convinced of rope-jumping’s merits as exercise, I strode boldly into a toy store, bought a candy-striped, red-and-wheat-colored rope, and went home to use it.

Mirrors

Fri, 01 May 1998 00:00:00 -0400

Mescaline, step aerobics, Pike’s Peak

The Rope

Fri, 01 May 1998 00:00:00 -0400

Vespers

Wed, 01 Jun 1994 00:10:00 -0400

Awkwardly, in fits and starts, the words came back to me.

Hail Mary, full of grace,
the Lord is with thee . . .

Treadmill

Fri, 01 Apr 1994 00:05:00 -0500

Like a warm cloak, the mundane settled onto his shoulders. He pulled the edges of his days close around him, nestling into their routines.

How To Kiss The American Dream Goodbye

Fri, 01 Jan 1993 00:05:00 -0500

Here’s one small metaphorical leap from travel literature: the journey of life can be enjoyed even in cheap hotels. This idea is standard in any folk philosophy — better to have modest means and do what you enjoy. Even in the carpeted corridors of yuppiedom, people are considering “downsizing” their frenetic careers, although this is more a search for sanity than the pursuit of an ideal. What I advocate is more radical than winching down from six digits of income to five.

Pedestrian Dreams

Sat, 01 Aug 1992 00:00:00 -0400

I’m a native New Yorker. I was born in Greenwich Village and raised in Brooklyn. I don’t live in New York now, but I still work there, and I consider it my goddamned right to go anywhere I want in the city. I’ve got to watch out — if a place looks dangerous, or people look dangerous, then I’m going to steer clear. But not on principle.

This Body

Sun, 01 Dec 1991 00:10:00 -0500

My daughters want to know why I’ve started working out at the Y. I want bigger muscles, I tell them. I want to be stronger. They think this is hilarious: a forty-six-year-old man acting like he’s sixteen.

Plum Island

Fri, 01 Mar 1991 00:10:00 -0500

One of Quick’s students is fishing at the foot of the beach beneath the shack he rents on Plum Island. The dog wants walking. There is no escape. The girl’s name is Harley and she is barely passing Spanish.

Selected Poems

Tue, 01 Aug 1989 00:00:00 -0400

This Isn’t Richard

Sun, 01 Mar 1987 00:05:00 -0500

In the eye of the storm, stripped of the certainty he had always deemed necessary for survival, denied the support of his teacher, divested even of his name, Richard found the deliverance he had not known he was searching for.