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Happiness
Infant Pneumonia
She wouldn’t suck. She wouldn’t cuddle. / Her eyes rolled toward me, then away again. / I hugged her to my chest and ran / from the doctor’s office to the X-ray lab.
December 2006The Marriage Bed
You will have to take my word on this: we loved each other. We were married to other people, we fell in love, and finally we were together and then married, for thirty years. We both expected Bill to die first; I was twenty-seven years old and he was fifty-four when we met, and through all of those years, even from the beginning, I told myself that I could live with his absence because our love would carry me the way a wave carries the light of the sun.
August 2006
Prayer In The Strip Mall, Bangor, Maine
The week after Thanksgiving and the stores are decked out / for holiday shopping, including a T.J. Maxx, where what was / once too expensive loses its value and attracts us
January 2006Secrets of Pronoia
How The World Is Conspiring To Shower You With Blessings
Pronoia is the antidote for paranoia. It’s the understanding that the universe is fundamentally friendly. It’s a means of training your senses and intellect so that you’re able to perceive the fact that life always gives you exactly what you need, exactly when you need it.
November 2005Sunbeams
October 2005If we will be quiet and ready enough, we shall find compensation in every disappointment.
Sunbeams
September 2005In a room where people unanimously maintain a conspiracy of silence, one word of truth sounds like a pistol shot.
Sunbeams
July 2005Fame will go by and, so long; I’ve had you, fame. I’ve always known it was fickle. So at least it’s something I experienced, but that’s not where I live.
Driven By Desire
The first sharp pang of desire hit me in the parking lot of my daughter’s preschool. It was a cold winter day in North Carolina, and as I buckled my seat belt, another mother maneuvered her gleaming new Volvo station wagon into the space beside my 1992 Honda Civic. She smiled and gestured for me to roll down my window so we could talk.
June 2005
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