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Marriage
The Good End of Pleasant Street
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.
June 2026
Milk
Pumped for an infant, spilled at the dinner table, used as a tear gas antidote
June 2026
Practicing
Taking piano lessons, learning to speak Russian, seeking enlightenment
May 2026
Separation
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.
May 2026Boxer’s Fracture
My mother once put her fist / through drywall, nothing fractured // but that already-broken home, / a little more of her spirit and ours.
May 2026
Practice Losing Everything
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.
April 2026
Four of Cups
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.
April 2026
A Conversation with My Father
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.
April 2026
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