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Cheating

A facelift, a name tag that says Allen, an unanswered knock

November 2000

In the moonlight, I study the face of the woman I’ve loved for eighteen years. I’m thankful the moonlight traveled such a vast distance tonight, just so I could see her sleeping.

My Father Never

My father never played catch with me when I was a boy — a tomboy, that is. I played catch for hours after school with Skipper, Evan, and Sammy, my friends from the neighborhood. And when they moved away, I played catch with myself, bouncing a tennis ball against the garage wall. But my father never played catch with me.

Sibling Rivalry

Unmailed postcards, phantom siblings, buried Barbie dolls

Dead Letter #4

Ganymede’s out on the hood of the truck, / keeping warm, hoping I’ll relent and let / him in, or more probably thinking nothing, / or perhaps only warm, if there is such a word / in the language of cats.

Sunbeams

The toughest part of being on a diet is shutting up about it.

Gerland Nachman

Promised Land

Having always been drawn toward the mystical and the contemplative, I’d converted to Catholicism three years before, but now I saw it was one thing to be told that death leads to resurrection and another to watch someone you love die in agony.

By The Roadside

Sunbeams

Eighty years old! No eyes left, no ears, no teeth, no legs, no wind! And when all is said and done, how astonishingly well one does without them!

Paul Claudel

Triple Delight

It wasn’t until my son Josh and his new wife, Laura, appeared back at our house after the honeymoon that I realized they were actually married and that I was blessed — that we all were. And it wasn’t until Laura, a few days later, licked the end of her finger and used it to wipe a smudge of makeup from the corner of my eye, putting her face just a few inches from mine and dabbing at me with her spit, that I realized I had another daughter.