A Dark Force is Calling All Cars
Snap out of it, I told my golem friend. There are more important things than dwelling in the past perfect, no need to cry over spilled chicken soup nor hunger after latkes with sour cream. Love comes in different varieties, some as easy as heating up a can of soup, but you are my own recipe— I appeal to your higher […]
The First Flying Woman
The old woman who lived in the bottom apartment called me. Her name was Basuma. Freckles covered her hands and arms and made her look like a ripe banana. She pointed to a tree in our backyard. “Look! The momma bird is feeding the baby bird,” she said. “Daddy’s watching for cats. When he sees […]
Ghosts: Sequel 2
She pointed to the bronze and wooden statuettes. The fact that she didn’t think the ghost was my husband, interested me while at the same time, I was happy he wasn’t messing with her mind. His own mind occupied a world of special relationships, mathematical probabilities especially about chess, an analytical cast inherited from his […]
Saguaro
Not the freaking desert, my father would rather spend his day at the beach, my mother, always in charge of food, packed egg sandwiches and a tall thermos, passed an insulated plaid bag to my uncle who cursed, took the sac anyway, and my two aunts, always ahead of the game, one negotiating rocks with […]
Visiting Hours
In a loosely gathered knot, cousins from different airports arrive at her bedside, morphine placed beneath her tongue, a liquid sacrament. Friends want her to recognize them, to repeat names, to remember how they used to spend summers together with the kids. In one moment she catches fire, the next, forgets. The children don’t know […]
A&E and the Story of Retirement
We all know the story: Eve plucks the apple from the Tree and God shows her and hubby Adam where to find the time clock. Of course, every tradition has a twist to the story, but it all leads back to the same talking point. So my question is—do I expect to be lounging around […]
Autumnal
Maples wrap branches around my rib cage,
a trap of orange and gold leaves filter translucent light,
and like an unsuspecting moth, I’m sucked in
Glenda the Good Witch at the Craps Table
There are no more brooms to burn.
No more truncated truces.
Morning Glories
“…that was that, we could do no more—had to trust to sun and water and time…” My first garden grew in the Hunts Point section of the Bronx where every spring my mother would order morning glory seeds from the P.S. 48 school catalogue, seeds that came in brown paper packets that arrived with our […]
Stormy Weather
A storm begins as a harmless patter, a shuffle on the pavement, an occasional trip-trap coming down at the same tempo, target practice increasing in accuracy until its velocity becomes more insistent, a spring downpour, the ahhing of earth absorbing moisture, then rain plays a trick, comes down in lashes, a punishment for hours and […]