Does a match also serve to shed light on a given subject? what if it casts doubt, the light, instead of offering answers? what if the minimal light of the match works only by contrast to reveal the immense … Read More
Comfort is important whether we remember it or not they say children never appreciate their parents enough they are right. We never forget the right things we write about petty grudges but never petty joys. Let there be more … Read More
On the bayou there’s no one to sing to but the birds it is for them you feel sometimes a song in yourself pushing against your mind from your mouth and asking you to expand the movement but it … Read More
I buried the seeds of my ancestors in the next generation but a blight took the harvest and rodents stole the granary walls from what they held now a container’s rolled onto the shore with a list of demands … Read More
Visiting rural Tennessee, I lie awake in a small motel at the edge of a small town, the night throbbing with sounds so robust it seems impossible they could burst from the delicate woodwinds of frogs and crickets. Here … Read More
In 2005 I was walking in Louisville, and a guy shouts out, “The TV’s watching you!” People are continually giving me things that I don’t know what to do with. A ceramic cow. Despair. Etc. So we say it’s … Read More
Suddenly everyone’s friendly. We’re working in the front yard, Boyd and I, and our neighbor who’s never spoken to us calls out, “good job!” And now we’re talking. She’s 77. “Early spring,” she says, and then “my grandkids can’t … Read More
Nearing the end of my father’s sabbatical year in Florence, my mother convinced him to rent a house in the mountains. She slipped the Holiday Homes brochure on top of his computer: “This one has a Ping-Pong table and … Read More
Mother’s tears are sick to death. Father’s eyes too small to see. Sister’s eyes are somewhere else and brothers’ eyes believe it. House’s lamps are out. Cat’s got the dog’s tongue, though he barks all … Read More
I sing the girls little songs while every plant in the house dies. In group, they say into a microphone: “Today we have learned coping skills.” I cannot say “stroke”; I cannot say “the unstoppable swelling of her … Read More
Cancer is a cancer is a cancer invading Publix check-out lines. Cashiers ask you to make a donation for it. There are 84 movies on IMDb that have patients diagnosed with it, vomiting from chemo because of it, balding … Read More
pulls down People Magazine asking her friend why J-Lo was wearing “that Cuban flag” during the Super Bowl. I want to tear titles off the front page—Inappropriate & R-Rated the way Pelosi tore Trump’s State of the Union speech. … Read More