Browse Topics
Grief
What Clouds
When I need to think, I clean. I sort and organize. I give away scores of possessions. In my mind I repeat the word away, away, away. I need clear, open space before I can even begin to understand the latest problem I’ve conjured for myself.
June 2021
Ghost Dogs
What happened next I shoveled into that dark ditch of my psyche, and then I covered it with heavy stones, and it wasn’t until more than twelve years had passed that I remembered what I’d made myself forget.
June 2021
Inheritance
I would like to give you a metaphor that describes what it’s like to potentially pass on to one’s children a pathogenic variant that will possibly go on to kill them, but everything I am coming up with is histrionic.
May 2021
Funeral For A Hamster
I was unable to protect my children from heartache. I couldn’t keep them from the pain of it. But I could ease their journey by helping them light their dead hamster’s funeral pyre.
March 2021
My Late Breast
My late breast was a model citizen: / humble, honest, kind. She gave / to her community, always erring / on the generous side.
March 2021Nesting
They take turns at the feeders, but if one lingers too long, the others — usually males — will jabber insults until the offender leaves. I have a secret nickname for the house sparrows: Little A-holes.
February 2021
I Still Don’t Feel Free
I’m sick of being defined by the prison experience and long to be a normal human being with a past that doesn’t need to be discussed.
February 2021
On A Ship
He was still reading the Book of Job. The prophet Jonah tried to flee from God unto Tarshish, and Isadore Lemberger was fleeing from death unto Buenos Aires.
January 2021
