My father is unshaven as though he just woke –grey stubble on bruised skin.What time is it? he asks. It’s 3 pm, I answer.Shouldn’t I be asleep? he asks.His eyes opaque, search mine,seek something I cannot provide.A shadow covers his brain, the one that once knewGreek and Latin unable now to holdfive minutes of English.I... Continue Reading →
If each moment encompasses all time – let me lose the constraint of this body leap into the galaxy cross dimensions as an astronaut blaststhrough earth’s atmosphere or an ant crosses the shortened string. Let me bend the time-space continuum cut the tether that ties me inside my skinand touch their hands once again. I... Continue Reading →
my father is an overgrown jungle.which is to say, his flowers aretangled in the vines. he is a creeper on dampened acres, underpinned byvestments of blackened earth, and stiffening snow. a feral cornucopia,unmaimed by the jaws of pruningshears. he's a quicksand swamp,entrapping me in the mire of tailspin malfunctions. Read More in Poetry
fingering the beads heldtogether by a metal chain,i'm bonded to my father.my attic pulls up scenes ofus in church pews, thecongregation singing. insilence, we listened to thepriest ramble on aboutcrackerjack battles andman-made struggle. as iwrap the cord around mywrist, i murmur hushed,disjointed, litanies of a frailbody. celestial utterancestrap me in a warehouseof stockpiled trophies.centered on... Continue Reading →
I open up my marking book. Jayden is doing well in reading, not quite grade level, but with practice, he will do fine, I say.She doesn’t hear me. Her eyes starved of all light. Tells a story. It spools inside me like a memory stuck in park. As she unlocked her doorthat night, the sky... Continue Reading →
Here, on the Ranch, the air smells bigger and the sky sounds bluer. The stars dance into constellations, and my feet know the bumps and curves in the road like I know the ridges of my own knuckles. The crickets are friendly, and the fire ants are foes, and we...
My father died on February 8.Two months later to the day, I receive a packagefrom my aunt—Dad’s big sis and 95 years old.It contains mementos of his:merit-badge certificates from the Boy Scouts dated 1943,a two-act comedy called The Umbrella composed in longhand,a shot of him—aged 87—loading a rear-tine tiller onto a pickup.Among other artifacts, I... Continue Reading →
“Let’s hold hands and pray,”my father says at the head of the table.“No!” I say, seated at his right hand.Across from me, a pair of eyes widen,my sister’s, and blink.My father’s eyes light on me—narrow as if sighting a rifle.“Do you want to eat in the bathroom?”I say nothing,not because it wasn’t a question. I’m... Continue Reading →
War came to Greece dressedas my great grandfatherwho must’ve started thisentanglement. Stationedin Rhodes, the Italian in merumbling in the belly, metallic blurs,screech of wind, watched the olive treesburn. Their flaming limbs walkingup peninsula to the tower.He watched bombs glideinto the stone, splatteringthe foundation, invoking a leanthen a crack, like rotten trunk,as the lantern sank into... Continue Reading →
We paddled into a night tide that never wanted us.For three hours, we duck-dived and turtle rolledpopping up for air amidst the salt-foam.The beach turning black as the sun lost its wayon some Western mission. This was good.It meant the Atlantic was ours, at least for a whileand so we took it, digging our handsswiftly... Continue Reading →
