Browse Topics
Marriage
Celebrating
A fiftieth anniversary in Paris, a COVID Christmas in April, a first birthday in America
December 2025
Pinkie Masters
A good scare can cure anything, she says. / We nod, and I thank her but insist / on holding my breath all night.
December 2025
Wild Animals
Swimming with whale sharks, hearing a mountain lion, refusing to eat a snake
November 2025
The Childless Aunt
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.
November 2025
The Lonesomest Sound in the World
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.
November 2025
The Cat Who Woke Me Up
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.
October 2025
Getting Dressed
Sleeping in uniform, layering against the cold, wearing your spouse’s jeans
September 2025
Red Desert
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.
September 2025
On Wheels
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.
September 2025
There, Here, Jazz
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 . . .
August 2025
Personal, political, provocative writing delivered to your doorstep every month—without a single ad.
Subscribe Today