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The Laundromat

Stolen clothes, a miniature copy of The Night before Christmas, a red halter top

The Search

A swarm of state aircraft were flying grids over the rugged valley where I live, looking for signs of Larry’s downed plane: broken trees, an oil slick in a lake, a signal fire. Like most others, I went about my work, expecting the search planes to find Larry and the children soon, refusing to indulge bad thoughts while there was still hope for good news.

Alive In The Dying

I am amazed to think that my own life includes writing poems and repairing windmills. It is as if I have two lives that have mysteriously become one.

A Friend In America

I held the secret letter deep in my raincoat pocket as I approached the hostel warden. “Excuse me,” I said, obviously American but at least polite. “Are you busy?”

For Lulu, With Love

She is pushed in through the door of the rural Mississippi clinic where I work. Behind her is movement, the rise and fall of slurred voices. Then a cluster of people crowd in behind her. But Lulu stands where she was pushed. She looks at me. I look at her, but not for long.

Teeth, Death, My Friend Louise

I’m forty-one, but my nine-year-old son persists in thinking I’m only forty. He’s at that phase when children become obsessed with their parents’ mortality, and for him this takes the guise of frequent (incorrect) recitations of my age, my birth date, and how old I’ll be on my next birthday.

Sunbeams

Paradise is exactly where you are right now, only much, much better.

Laurie Anderson

My Block

Frolicking in DDT; learning the constellations, remembering a clubhouse initiation

The Blue Devils Of Blue River Avenue

Whether I was at the Sambeauxs’ or the Millers’ or the Carrs’, or just out in the street with my little buddies, it was always the same. They were like hothouse tomatoes pushing hard for what they thought was the light. We would hide in a bush, or cluster in the treehouse, or lean back among the interstices of the towering, ragged, catwalk hedge, and the topic would invariably arise, spelled out in red letters above our heads: S-E-X.

Which Way To Siloam?

I turned my head to look at the woman on the bed to my left, and felt a jolt of shock. Carlos was bent over her and, with two hands, stretching apart the skin over her stomach. A tumor the size of a cantaloupe was slowly extruding through the opening, and the woman had raised her head to stare at the thing in amazement.