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Original Sin

I knew well enough that, without drastic cause, mothers like mine do not entrust their adolescent sons to aunts like Louise. Surely, Mother would have kept me among her own people if there had been any.

Pine Boards & Strawberries

Finding Courage At A Cancer Workshop

As the end of my chemotherapy treatments approached, they became more and more difficult to endure. Freedom was so near, I could hardly bear to wait for it another second.

Anatomy Of A Lie

I can’t tell you this, but my mother has a dot on her lung. It’s a small dot, on the left lung. If her lung were a map of Texas, the dot would be roughly the size of the city of El Paso, which is large enough to be written in boldface type by Rand McNally.

When I Was Immortal

My mother wound a dish towel around her left wrist, pulled it tight, then unwound it. My father sat waiting for something, smiling slightly, looking across the kitchen table at me and my sister, Kim.

After The Laying-On Of Hands For Jonathon, Dying Of Cancer

Poet

I had come to Yellow Springs for the Antioch Writers Workshop, an annual event on the Antioch College campus. My college writing teacher and advisor, the poet Jud Jerome, was an integral part of the workshop.

Go Figure

Last Leg

Tripod has been peacefully asleep for many minutes, yet I am still running my hand from her ear down to her hip, stroking her again and again. But now I remember why I brought her here, and I look up into the solemn face of the old vet and nod.

The GirlsClub

I’m depressed. My girlfriend left me. Then I got cancer of the colon, so I had to have my large intestine removed, cut out, the whole thing, gone.

Stephen

I can’t believe how naive I was when I interviewed Stephen Schwartz last year. I was drawn to his warmth, his humor, the beauty of his language. I was moved by his insights about emotional healing. There’s no ideal state of consciousness, he insisted, other than the one we find ourselves in right now.