There were no bar codes and no sticky tags, just a continuous flow, from the rain to the earth to a peasant woman to the market to us.

"...I use letters and the random arrangement of letters to allow for more and more possibilities."

Arms Long and Small — Cockspur, rosehip, did you nibble my ilium? Didn’t you purr? But I don’t remember too much about you.

An artist muses on the "mystery, darkness, and function" of basements in his work.

Share:FacebookTwitterLinkedinTumblrPrint The Shamrocks Little green trinities—at home between sky and sod, a canny family resemblance, a truly inside job—a common life far beyond broad oceans of guilt and sad regret—not these worthless plastic hats and opaque glasses, not these banners from forgotten holidays spent over Hell’s Ditch and the moon—not the smoking remnants of a blasted Friday from dark in 1972—not me, not you, not at all this weight of black hilarity behind us—only a lilt of dawn light over the rise, and a breeze that moves with or without purpose, and that sweeps the quiet field of the many and the one.

Share:FacebookTwitterLinkedinTumblrPrint The Guns of Navarone, 1961   “It’s fifty years since I have felt alone,” he said, and told the story of the day he went to see The Guns of Navarone. Before the days of text and mobile phone you hand wrote letters when you were away from loved ones, so they wouldn’t feel alone.

Share:FacebookTwitterLinkedinTumblrPrint Men in the Susquehanna Below the overpass, a dozen men are staggered like a mean bowling split across the shining flats. How can these men be here on a Wednesday morning, fishing for trout? Perhaps they’ve taken the day off from work. Perhaps they don’t have work.  They gritted their teeth all winter long, but now they take up hope of plenty, fresh fillets on the grill or fried in popping bacon grease, a freezer full enough to last ’til spring turkey season.

Share:FacebookTwitterLinkedinTumblrPrint Kennedy Drive The night of the warehouse fire, we all stayed up watching an orange sky twist flame and shadow, flinching with each boom as oil drums succumbed. Maybe we should leave, my mother said. My father—glowing bright, then dim— stared out the window. Listen, you can hear each barrel roll and blow.

Share:FacebookTwitterLinkedinTumblrPrint Schismatic at a Wedding by the Sea   I. I was lost in ribs of stone, fixated on mossy shadows of angels winging from behind your ears. When you said you didn’t trust my eyes, your words bobbed me back from my grave of details, but your breath formed a nettle which made me still more upset: You had drawn attention to yourself by referring —like curtains ungathered in a boat of glass—to a place the sea does not reflect.

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Every dog must have its day, and every pup its pedigree.

Black and white: I can’t imagine the life of Vera Frankel, before my birth, with color.

Share:FacebookTwitterLinkedinTumblrPrint Your most fundamental drives are stitched into the fabric of your neural circuitry, and they are inaccessible to you. You find certain things more attractive than others, and you don’t know why. – David Eagleman, Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain At least the African was an excuse to get out of the house, like a trip to Staples for a bargain box of correction tape.

Linda liked the mini quiches and popped them like gum drops. She was as big as a house.

As I close my eyes, I think of a gentle rain and the red flowers.

"...the man developed the film and very carefully made print after print, watching the two of them take shape on the white paper..."

I remember a riddle my grandmother taught me. "Walang puno, walang ugat, hitik ng bulaklak." No tree, no roots: these millions of flowers.

The rideshare adds digital drama to eavesdropping.

"...being a slut meant being promiscuous, and being promiscuous meant being desirable, and being desirable meant being powerful."

H O H it says in large primitive letters. He’s over here? Hates our hospital?