Browse Topics
Grief
His Hands
A friend tells me, Back pain is always anger. I don’t believe him. Maybe, though, grief settles in the muscles there. That, I could believe.
February 2018
Eclipse
To distract myself from the fact that my dog is dying, I check the headlines. This is August 2017, so the news is not good, but it keeps my gaze from drifting over to my dog’s curled-up body, trembling on his bed in the corner. In a lot of ways, reading the news is like watching my dog die, just easier to bear.
January 2018
The Queen of Hearts
Rule #20: Never bring a book to work. It makes the customers think you’re better than them. It doesn’t matter what you’re reading. It doesn’t matter if you’ve finished cleaning all the glasses and it’s a quiet Monday afternoon — leave the book at home. You’ll know this when your father comes behind the bar looking pissed and tells you to come into his office.
January 2018
My Father’s Hammer
After he died, my mother gave me his toolbox, / saying he would have wanted me to have it, / the hammer kept inside as if in a little grave.
November 2017Grief Runs Untamed
In one hand the exiles hold a bundle / with a blanket, medicine, and a comb; / in the other, a door handle. / They attach it to every mountain and wall, / hoping the handle will conjure the door / that will open and let them in.
November 2017The Wayward Daughter
I’m at my father’s bedside, his hand resting in mine. His skin feels thin, but his nails grow thick and long, creeping a half inch beyond the rounded flesh. They’re the only part of him that seems healthy. How can the nails keep growing like this when his heart pumps barely enough blood to keep him alive?
October 2017
We Are All Children Here
I was never able to answer my mother when she asked how her Holocaust experience had affected me. And she deserves my good-faith attempt, albeit these many years late.
October 2017
Catching The Westbound
When my father died, he left two letters in separate envelopes, both marked “To be opened at my death.” One is addressed to my brother and me. The other is to his wife.
September 2017
Selected Poems
— from “Better Than Expected” | Things were not as bad as I had thought. / The scrape in the fender of the rented car / could be hidden with a little white paint / before I returned it to the agency.
August 2017
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