Let sorrow know that I am coming for it — Over the hill that opens on the valley where the train comes whistling through, all business and steel and particolored graffiti. Let sorrow know that I’m going to ride it like that train, leap on as it slows down, grab those metal doors and force... Continue Reading →

The Next Thing You’ve decided what that is, have you? Decided you’ll work in the garden or get the oil changed; clean the cat boxes, or meet Suzanne for that cup of coffee the two of you cancelled in June. You’ve decided how the afternoon will go, one next thing leading into the next next... Continue Reading →

He took me to a hillside over Bethlehem (Pennsylvania, that is). We spread a blanket down, had with us a thermos of coffee and the night air full of crickets and frogs. He leaned back on his elbows; I followed his gaze upward to where the day had fallen into the arms of reckless night... Continue Reading →

Morning comes, disconsolate and world-weary, but I am having none of it.  This morning, I will snatch the world up in a handkerchief and tie to to stave I found.  I will swing the world over my shoulder and let it follow behind me, bouncing like a saddlebag against the bony protrusions of my back.... Continue Reading →

Morning comes over the loudspeaker with its relentless goodwill.  There will be activities at the clubhouse and the swimming pool. Some kind of luau on the concrete deck. Expect leis. And don’t forget the hike with Jeff, the champion birdwatcher.  You’ve seen him, haven’t you, hanging about on the edges of things with his field... Continue Reading →

Morning came unnatural Like a taste in the back of your throat or a vague panic. A wanting, like hamster feet scrabbled across bare skin just before the bite. Refrigerator light comes on like magic Sour milk Panic and wanting What if? Nevermind. But if — run and find a quiet place in the garden... Continue Reading →

One evening, after the main event, in that milling time over coffee, I found myself in conversation with men who raise bees. They were giddy, buzzing about it, like children, filling the room with glee. I found myself, despite myself, half-agreeing to don a beekeeping suit and go out one afternoon in May for something... Continue Reading →

In the morning — this morning — I opened a small red notebook and commenced to write. And what I wrote was nonsense: the disconnected fragments of a week that had gone by stressfully; the insistent kneading of a cat’s claws on my leg; the refrigerator hum that has turned, by some distressing trick of... Continue Reading →

Of course I pray that trouble does not come today. Today, I hope, will be a bed of roses shorn of thorns and full of of other comforting cliches: Spring showers. Daffodils. Kittens playing with a ball of string. I pray that’s all this day will bring. — But — if trouble comes If trouble... Continue Reading →

I walked out at the caterpillar edge of dawn, night still wrapped like a chrysalis around the day that was coming. Birdsong from the fields was the scrape of butterfly wings new-formed against that cotton womb, grown too close now and too hot. I watched it soften, gossamer turned glass, deep orange beneath, staining the... Continue Reading →