anais nin said we write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect. she was somebody great. i want to be somebody great….
My Mom said my hair wasn’t rightfor ponytails or pigtails. You’re not a normal girl.A barber’ll know what to do with this mop, she said….
Down on the lake rosy reflections of celestial vapor appeared, and I said “God, I love you” and looked up tothe sky and really meant…
I. Español. I used to sit in a classroom full of color, where everyone spoke with tongues the color of gold, copper, silver, and salt. Back…
Kneel; Verb/ Honoring Colin Kaepernick Suddenly football, the game and gridiron, is a man on his knees.What does a patterned patch of cloth mean, the…
It occurred to me the other dayas I sat slicing and squeezing lemonson a hot summer afternoon,That the life of an urban lemon from birth…
“I’m afraid you will not smokemy meaning…”-John Keats Thursday morning he moved himself out of bedbefore any light broke throughthe already broken shadeand stood in…
In fact, we barely knew your slim thicketof zip codes could be so easily shruggedfrom memory, there wasn’t even a backseat side-eye.We don’t belong to…
The bat carries starson the undersidesof her wings. Her head is the tipof galaxyher body a velvetcometshattering nightwith its jagged arcof flight. Her thumbs &…
Autumn starts when the trees give up drinking.An appointment is madein the ditch of Lake Meadand the hairy hands,tented on mahogany,speak calmly,which can only augur…
The world sounds lovely over my left shoulder.A dog barks. A bird is chirping. The white rush of two-ton metal trucks on the asphalt. I am…
Hail Mary, full of Grace, Mother of God, Mother of Angels, Sacred Virgin,Knower of unknown unknowns, Arbiter of the end of the beginning:let it be….
I have so much to tell you,now that I am dead. I left my native soil in 1895 to seeka land as warm as gold,…
We return to the Grand Pacific Hotelin Suva, Fiji, but it is not the way it was or what we thought it was:the cold lobster almost…
There’s a temporary campground, with a tent,billowing-white, just off Sprague Ave. in Tacoma. Keep your daughter home. Make popcorn with salt,buttery-warm. Let her watch the…
The tiny cottage in the woods is abandoneduntil the woman whose husband drinkstakes refuge thereafter a bender,without regret.The woman loves her husband,and this is how…
A pedicure is an archaeological expedition, if those feet belong to your mother. A part of this country was your beginning of history. A faded…
(Rosa Bonheur, Rue des Tournelles, Paris 1836) My easel billetedbetween stove and painting chest,Most mornings Papa teachesat an atelier for young ladies,later portrait sittings–a Portuguesefactory…
That summer at the ranch, one seasonbefore Stanley hung himself in the toolshed,with rope worn from countless tie-downs–choosing his own handiwork over cancer–there was a…