Writing
Escaping drunk strangers
We lock eyes for a moment and you smile knowingly. Target-fixed, you trip on your feet to get to my friends and I.
Closing the door on family ties
A family incident told from the perspective of a child.
This is a poem for you, lord
lord knows/ i am difficult/ like a watermelon/ loaded/ with inoperable seeds
Hiking through the ruins of history
How dirty old tennis shoes make history come alive.
White light
“There’s nowhere to go,” she heard herself say. “It’s everywhere.”
General E. Lee talks of pines
my uncle gave me a rope / and said knot / and throw it over that pine / and call for Xerxes
This Friday the 13th, keep your eyes on the road
They light the road, lanterns burning in the fields. They know the path, and hide its hazards.
Ghosts and legends fade slowly, or not at all
The Grimm brothers' stories have been scrubbed and sanitized, but phantoms of the morbid originals still drift through the centuries.
Holding on to imaginary friends
Counselor Julian deals with her students' imaginary friends and more.
Communist for a day
One student joins a political protest, though he may not have the convictions to hold out.
High tide
He's ruined it all for me here. This spot was sacred to me.
I don't know you
I don't know you. You don't even look like someone I would know.
A world away, coping with Phillies' defeat
In the scattered realm of Chicago sports loyalties, a Phillies fan gets doubled off base whether his team wins or loses the World Series.
Lasting impression
When an ordinary afternoon changes a life.
Daylight on the stairs
Take a trip to the abandoned attic.
“It was on that dreary spring afternoon that I first began to understand the world that had perished before my time.” - Zalman Kelber
• • Columns
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