Story

He walked with a peculiar gait. First, his knees would creak forward, then his feet would whip compliantly into place, frightened to be left behind, scuffing the gravel with each odd step. The rest of his body did not move, except as carried forward stiffly by his wayward legs. I can’t say I recall him […]

I recall it all, thrown into the blood-on-white chaos of the delivery room, the shrieking people and the beeping of man’s life machines, the stark light first seen through closed eyes. It was all so different from the floating, dark serenity of the womb, where my thoughts found the peace of patient solitude, where the […]

We lay basking contentedly in the drowsy-afternoon sun, the curtains drifting gently in the giving providence of summer’s breeze; her breasts, falling in curvaceous grace, bathed in the amber glow. Her eyes closed, she accepted me watching her, coveting her essence. Determined clicking of sultry heels approached on the walkway outside my apartment door, and […]

“I’ve been here once before,” she said as we pulled into the lot, “Would you like to know with who?” “I already know,” I returned. Reggae music wound and pivoted, the bass thumping down my spine from the speakers behind me, luring me to islands, but it wasn’t working. The lights were too bright, and […]

I was a boy, lost in the wonder of small things, fallen in the shadow of larger things, aware, but unaware. Surely, the widening shade falling over the creek was from the trees, towering in watchful silence. It was a corrugated-pipe muddy-shoe oasis, running under a forgotten road, known only to the local children, the […]

“Let’s do a challenge. We’ll write poems. What topic would you like?” “There’s this line along your inner thigh. It curves inward splendidly, and the sun caresses the shadows there.” “You can’t write about that.” she’d reprimanded. “Why not? There are little hairs there, barely there, and I can almost feel them brushing against my […]

“How about this one, Dad?” “It’s a bit wet, still green, but you’ve found a good one in that same gathering. Look to the left, past the thorny bush.” And it was a fine log, a large branch, really. Dry, and small enough for him to carry, but dense enough that he’d build some confidence […]

Not bothering to correct her, we sit watching as the pup digs, pulling, tugging at the juicy roots she finds until each is freed its dusty grave. I lean over, sharing a thought, telling the boy, “Somewhere, on the other side of the world, there’s a guy in China who’s swearing in Chinese and can’t […]

Truth burns in the afternoon campfire, each flame bearing a realization, fed oxygen, given passion of belief. Tho each moves– climbing the wood’s jagged Zen mountains, changing shape, truths– themselves, changing, as relinquishing, each passing hope to the next, until all are extinguished as the fuel is spent, reduced to coals and blowing ash. I […]

I awoke from my nap to find that the neighbors on either side had put up so many Christmas lights that my house, in the center and without a single light yet, looked like an expectant runway at an airport. The boy with the musical corduroy pants was hungry, so we left for the Chinese […]