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The Hill

Intuition

“I love you,” I shout. I can’t believe I spoke so directly. Usually I prefer to communicate on a more sub-conscious level. “I love you, Christa.” But Christa is already typing, and has written over my words.

The Words Left Unsaid

Words alone had not knitted us together; neither could silence tear the fabric. I remember a crisp fall afternoon when I started to tell my mother that I loved her, that seeing her suffer was more pain than I could bear, that — she held out her arms to stop me. “Don’t speak,” she said, “or we’ll both cry.”

Daylight Savings

Orson has stopped asking me to marry him, but every once in a while he says something to let me know that the offer still stands.

Bedtime Reading

Soon after I met the man who is now my husband — it was our second date, I think — Peter explained one of his chief requirements in a woman: “Let’s go to the library. We’ve got to be able to read in the same room together.”

The Rain Still Comes

The Written Word

Writing words on paper is particularly arrogant. How presumptuous to believe that words on paper can capture meaning, freeze life, hold it for even a moment.

Castaway

The bar is everything a bar should be. The lighting is dim and soothing, only the wooden bar and colored bottles gleam, and the bartender is a soft-spoken, soft-moving man with a golden beard.

Selected Poems

Understanding, silent, they stand near. / Their patience is our shield. Beyond desire / their touch steadies us, and where fear / would make us turn they guide our feet, fire / like an emptiness burning them to love.

—from “In The Keeping Of Angels”

Between The Lines