StopTake a breathWhat do you see?A teardrop stain, like dripping condensation on a windowIt smears against the pad of my right thumb.Green fingers of an aloe reaching out and to the lightRotting soilA black gnat sitting on a spore.My hair is everywhereComing out in clumps it hangs like Spanish moss from the branches of an …
Continue reading A Meditation on Place
I wanted him to love me Until he said it Until he took the words and shoved them into syllables that I could count on just one hand. The words The way they sound inside his mouth The way they look inside the air Hovering before his face Their viscous form, blood red Like strawberry …
Continue reading Strawberry Jam
Softer now—my heart and how it melts and pools inside my chest. That’s what happens when you have a child, they say. But still I feed the fear both in my sleep and in my waking hours. Someone is always next. I cradle my sweet boy. The men inside my family all of them always …
We pick oranges. I can see the sweat on his Miami Dolphins t shirt, and on his upper lip.
After they die, I crack a cold, cheap beer and comb through my belongings. I look for letters, texts, facebook comments and photographs. Listen to messages to see if maybe, somewhere along line, they’ve left me the gift of their voice. After they die, I scramble desperately for something left of them. Something tangible. Something …
There was a pair of house finches building a small nest outside our window. I’d watch them weave it all together—the female, with her muted brown feathers, working relentlessly on her art. The twigs meticulously placed, one over the next—how they intertwined with one another. The male, with his bright cherry red head and breast, …
Continue reading The House Finch
It’s taken me now just about a month to come up with words to express my feelings of our time. I’ve thought about it a lot—nearly endlessly, to be honest. The words I would normally write feel cheap—because it hasn’t really gotten better, certainly not for many of us. And it might not get better …
Continue reading On a Hot Tin Roof
How do you talk about a sunset, without sounding like every conversation about sunsets? At the market, the checker she says, The sunset is beautiful—I love that I can watch it from this window. I say, Oh yes, the colors are stunning. Those pinks, those yellows. Then, when I get home, my mother-in-law, she says, …
The Wild Heart of Life 