A Man Who Is Not April
Contrary though light is evidence, bountiful. and spring arousal shivers bough and flesh alike… my human season contradicts the budding, haste of grass. panoply of birds… the gathering separates me, the welcome countermands… for newness is a party to the grave, what’s found here is lost elsewhere… such stratagems of earth and air… the future begins, so the past won’t have...
Read MoreFor Solitude’s Sake
sun, at last, showing a little of that vaporous red and orange late October originality, shadows cut with scissors, pale light and even paler glitter. an all-star cast of insect noises, wind picking up so trees can toss their tops off – an emptiness in the heart won’t do – your absence has these better ways of explaining...
Read MoreAn Asthmatic Hearing Himself Breathe
Sometimes it sounds like barn doors opening, lots of ancient wood and rusty iron creaking and cracking. Other times, it’s a shrill northeasterly wind, rattling the windows of my lungs. Then there’s that panting of the overheated dog, the rapid wheeze of an accordion playing polka. My breath is a percussion instrument. It’s all the woodwinds and occasionally, the strings. Sometimes, on the good days, I hear nothing at all. Ah the silence of it. That’s a sound...
Read MoreSeal and Pup on the Beach
Barely two feet long, its fur dries in Hawaiian sun to a rich silken ebony. Blue-black eyes hide behind rings of warm white sand. Its mother rolls over on her side, uncovering a glaucous belly, four budding nipples. The pup twists onto its back to nurse, a gentle sucking, soft as waves retreating from the beach. Then, it folds up under its mother’s chin like a beard, crosses its flippers across its chest, and sleeps the sleep of love and safety. The tide ebbs but all else...
Read MoreDialogue with Myself
Many years ago — born — dairy country — grandparents all dead — mother, youngest of thirteen, more cousins than cows — born — same moment when a drop of rain fell, two hands squeezed a bovine teat, a mango toppled from a tree — a cool ocean breeze — the smell of ginger from the nearby factory — all grandparents in the ground — none to pat the baby’s head, none to get drunk in the celebration, slip and stumble on the stairs — even my father, a few months to live — what’s the story? life’s...
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