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Potpourri
When I was a kid there was always this sour taste on my attitude that made me want to crouch to the kitchen and sneak a sip of my father’s coffee. But I think what I really wanted was to steal a hit from his voice without him feeling it, thinking doing that would teach […]
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Bread
On the television, a Ukrainian man sits down on the cold earth in front of a Russian tank that’s poised to shoot, and as the tank inches forward just a few inches at a time, the man scoots back, inch by inch. Like the tiny piece of a window lodged in the forehead of a […]
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Black and Tan
This morning I drink my coffee to feel loved and less alone, and even though I know it doesn’t hold me or sit beside me and run its fingers under the hair on the back of my head, the way you used to whenever you didn’t want to disturb me while I was writing, but […]
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Power Lines
The boy had bitten a large chunk out of a neighbor and was heading for downtown. The state police were called and they surrounded him down by Miller’s pizza. First, they tried to talk to him, but that ended when Tommy went after a mother who was strolling her baby. They fired some rubber bullets […]
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Cinnamon Roll
This morning I’m like icing spread across a cinnamon roll, and can’t find myself in the mirrors of reflection to save my life, and the view from the sleep bubble I’ve created doesn’t look back, but just piles more and more awareness on top of itself, like bodies bulldozed into a ditch of forgetting. It’s […]
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Basketball
Dribbling the basketball down the court like a demon just called for dinner, I drove the hoop, launching into the sweat-filled air above my pursuer, who didn’t have a prayer at stopping my shot. I recall there being a moment during the game where my 6th grade body just knew we were going to come […]
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Lion
In high school my psychotherapist called me a spoiled brat, and when he didn’t get a rise out of me, admitted he was trying to see what I would do after being insulted by an adult. Don’t even get me started on negative capability, I thought, while I told him that I understood that even […]
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Carrots
On Sunday nights my father would make a plate of vegetables on an extra-large serving plate. Carrots, cucumber, green pepper, radish and a giant beetle, just kidding, were served up weekly, and often with a tub of dip in the middle, either a clam or shrimp variety, which my father made with cream cheese, the […]
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Duty
doesn’t like lines, but will stand in one because those are the rules and it thinks we need them. It moves around like the ant, performing its tasks without question, often losing a feeler or a leg during its foray into service and reliability, neither of which will be replaced. Like the child who goes […]
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Logic
takes into account any particular train of thought that your brain might have, whether you’re imagining a woman in a white dress with her back to you in a field in Kansas, waving at clouds overhead, or a poetry mentor in a sleeveless white t-shirt eating sardines with you in his office, it rides along […]
the real subject is always you 