Vernon and Rae-Ann (4)
One summer Domino did get covered with fleas and Rae-Ann did just what her auntie had told her. By the time Domino shook herself dry, the dog was clean and ran up to lick Rae-Ann’s hand. Not a single flea. But when Aunt Dee became sick, some kind of nerve damage that attacked her heart […]
Shopping Cart
Heads of lettuce are deconstructed into plastic tubs that cost twice as much, if not more than whole heads replaced by escarole, radicchio, and baby spinach leaves. Romaine (cos) and iceberg (crisphead) continue to be available. Even so, the more nutritious outer leaves have been stripped away to reveal pale green. Walmart sells hearts four […]
Shopping at Walmart in January
Walmart ordered way too many bicycles this year to sell over the Christmas holidays. They outline the entrance to the store all the way back to the Garden Center, blue and pink bicycles, waiting like lost puppies for a family to take home. It is January, post-holidays, several weeks since we’ve gone shopping. Provisions are […]
Ernest Gaines at Northwestern State in Natchitoches
“He knows a history unknown in history books.”
Sitting in Duck Country
Find the university police office opposite the Burger King on DeSiard. The library is down the street from the KFC, the Farmer’s Market for satsumas is tucked around the corner from the P.O., but not the one from Eudora Welty’s story, it’s the one that’s here in Monroe. Without numbers, a GPS device is worthless, […]
I Hate Walmart
“I pass an aisle of travel mugs in different colors, and sizes, with Disney characters, Duck Dynasty members, motorcycle riders and flowers growing in orange and purple, overdosing in consumer excess and Walmart is the pusher.” I hate pulling into Walmart’s parking lot in Monroe, Louisiana, where I watch out for motorized patrons who carry […]
Whippoorwill
I looked for you riding the down escalator on my way to the bargain table at Alexander’s where you used to take me to find a dress in a girl’s 10 chubby–but I’m no longer that size and I could not find you On some days your eyes turned green, other times hazel like Salvador […]
Civil War
Broken-in shoes gather molded arches beneath an army of dangling limbs. Some wait, collars upturned, yearning to be made whole. Bare wire hangers dig meatless fingers into sagging woolen shoulders, the only warmth this place knows. Purple tinged fluorescence bruises her whites, exposes her blacks. A yellow bird sings through half-lit bars.
A Pencil and a Friendship
When I think of the witch in Hansel and Gretel, I think of my kindergarten teacher from P.S. 48 in the Bronx, Mrs. Burke. Her one saving grace was that she introduced me to a kaleidoscope, a prism that illustrated how one thing can appear differently. But in all honesty, my fear of […]
Eudora Welty in Jackson, Mississippi and Revelation
When I drove to Jackson, Mississippi to meet with several members of the Writer’s Guild for lunch, I discovered the answer to a question that I’d been asking myself for a long time. I didn’t realize I had found the answer until several days later. You see, on the way to the appointed lunch spot, […]