Our Other Sister – Jeffrey Harrison The cruelest thing I did to my younger sister wasn’t shooting a homemade blowdart into her knee, where it dangled for a breathless second before dropping off, but telling her we had another, older sister who’d gone away. What my motives were I can’t recall: a whim, or … Continue reading Poem of the Week, by Jeffrey Harrison
Smaller Dog – Stephen Cushman We can’t all be brightest in the sky or the biggest guy in outer space. But I don’t envy anybody’s place or need to feel I have no worth because I’m far from Orion’s heel. My yellow-white double star delivers its light to nearby Earth in eleven years flat, which … Continue reading Poem of the Week, by Howard Cushman
First touch, seventeen years ago. A hotel room in Hangzhou. 102 degree heat and a tiny baby in a striped split-pants outfit who has just been handed to you. Diaper rash. You take off her striped outfit and diaper and pull up your t-shirt and lay her down, stomach to stomach. She sticks two fingers … Continue reading Skin remembers how
Flossie at School – Alden Nowlan Five laths in a cotton dress was christened Flossie and learned how to cry, her eyes like wet daisies behind thick glasses. She was six grades ahead of me and wore bangs; the big boys called her “The Martian,” they snowballed her home, splashed her with their bicycles, … Continue reading Poem of the Week, by Alden Nowlan
All day today I kept returning to the photo of an old friend, lying in a bed pushed against a bank of windows in her house. Her husband sat in a chair and leaned over the side of the bed, her son held one of her i.v.-tubed hands and her daughter the other. She was … Continue reading From the archives, in honor of Lissa
In the Middle – Barbara Crooker of a life that’s as complicated as everyone else’s, struggling for balance, juggling time. The mantle clock that was my grandfather’s has stopped at 9:20; we haven’t had time to get it repaired. The brass pendulum is still, the chimes don’t ring. One day you look out the window, … Continue reading Poem of the Week, by Barbara Crooker
Jenny Kissed Me – Leigh Hunt Jenny kissed me when we met, Jumping from the chair she sat in; Time, you thief, who love to get Sweets into your list, put that in; Say I’m weary, say I’m sad, Say that health and wealth have missed me, Say I’m growing old, but add, Jenny kissed … Continue reading Poem of the Week, by Leigh Hunt
On James Baldwin and Diverse Literature
Putting those recalcitrant toddler cancer cells to bed...
your own PDK for writing
a collection of beautiful words.....
Objects, Memory and Meaning
If it can't be said in a hundred words, then it can't be said in a thousand.
sewing a handmade wardrobe
"drink from the well of your self and begin again" ~charles bukowski
Musings on poetry, language, perception, numbers, food, and anything else that slips through the cracks.
Thoughts on the world around me
the literary asylum
Bipolar is my superpower
