All love is an afterthought, an ideal that whispers “remember me,” carrying us, wildflowers in a basket, petals falling, lighting on the edge of gravel. Funny how the road boasted victory. I just remember the windlessness, the still miracle that carried us gently, setting us down with purpose. There we waited for the next rain, …
To cure my dog of her errant ways, I bought a vibrating collar, clipped it around the fat of her neck, popped the tether’s hook into the ring, took her out for a spin. See, she’s the type that goes for the throat, fellow canine or random kid, it doesn’t matter. Introduce her to a …
This is how I remember you, white apron speckled with red sauce, spectacles on the end of your nose, eyes rolling heavenward while you stifled a mutter, “Sweet baby Jesus, will you ever stop?” That I didn’t showed us both something: I was not to be trusted. Not with dirty pots I’d stuck to the …
I look down, and it’s on my thigh, just sitting there, sucking the last bit of self from me, and I wonder, for a second, how it lives, all those antidepressants in my blood, all those germs on public toilets. What a time to get a tick, I think, for these bumps to arise, pushing …
I learned young to serve: ring the bell at Christmas, thank strangers for their change, handle hot tongs, release chicken legs onto soup kitchen plates, bag diapers and tampons, pass them to the poor, no inkling one day, I would be among them. This, I learned older: how hard it is to stand in line, …
Of all pandemics I’ve survived, you are my favorite, teaching me what it means to be alive. Okay, I admit it, you’re the only one I’ve lived through, keeping me in my basement, (thankfully not alone), typing through Poetry Month, working from home, ordering groceries online – how much more privileged could I possibly be? …
The irony of language: it’s a gorgeous word. Say it out loud: language. Say it for the sake of linguistics. Say it for the sake of auld lang syne. Say it for the sake of now, celebrating it daily, hourly, prefix, suffix, present participle, all that was and is and still could be. Let your …
Turn off the morning news. Go to the old stereo. Turn on the blues. Because if anyone knows the trouble you feel it’s the songwriters, musicians, making it real, telling us what it is to be alive, how every thought has a place, how every pain has brought us closer to where we need to …
