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Aging
I Am The Star Of A Rock Video
Ever since I turned sixty, my fame has grown — slightly. I became the visiting writer at a college in Albany, New York. An article about me appeared in Metroland, the hip Albany weekly. One of my poems was published in the prestigious American Poetry Review. And a young man named Miles Joris-Peyrafitte asked me to star in a rock video.
May 2015Fathers And Sons
Some things, they say, / one should not write about. I tried / to help my father comprehend / the toilet
April 2015The Full Eighty-Eight
They were living off Floreta’s pay now. Money was tight, but it had always been that way, forty years of never catching up. If they ever did get a little bit ahead, something always happened: a recession, a car crash, a broken bone, an illness.
March 2015
There Is No Secret
The peculiar thing about adulthood is that eventually you discover there is no such thing as adulthood. There are only best guesses and increasingly permanent results.
March 2015
Abuelita
At the Paso Picacho Campground just after dusk, I walk past a big Mexican / family picnic: everyone chatting & laughing around a long plank table littered / with paper plates & plastic cups & half-empty bottles of Fanta.
March 2015Tincture Of Mother
My younger brother, Michael, takes offense when I remark that our once socially adept, ninety-two-year-old mother has all the conversational skills of a windup doll. I’m referring to the supply of one-size-fits-all phrases she uses to hide her dementia: “Fortune favors the brave,” “It’s a great life if you don’t weaken,” and “Every silver lining has its cloud” are her three favorites.
January 2015
Selected Poems
— from “Ode To Invisibility” | O loveliness. O lucky beauty. / I wanted it and I couldn’t bear it.
January 2015My Left Eye
You’d think at my age I might realize that the spinning bottle of medical fate would eventually stop and point to me. I have known too many people who have passed away: diseased hearts, prostates, and colons; the effects of Agent Orange; or just plain bad luck. As I approach sixty, Why me? is evolving into Why not me?
December 2014
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