The Liminal Point
My friend Peter once told me about just-noticeable difference, a phenomenon where we can calculate that enough has changed for a subject to notice a change has occurred: volume…
An Abecedarian Essay on Terror
August at the pond. Beach chairs made of rickety redwood, melamine plates balanced on knees, juice boxes abandoned in the sand when the kids tore off to hunt for…
Not a Small Thing
My father died just shy of fifty-nine years of marriage, or sixty-six years as a couple, if you count as mother does, from their first date. My mother accepted…
Elegy for El Fósil
They call him El Fósil—the fossil—as if he were the only one at the museum. He’s not, but he sure is the showstopper, the reason tourists like me pedal…
The Wild Hunt
The turn that got her was an embarrassment. A nothing bend on a level road after hours of snaking up and down creation. Barely even knew she’d left the…
Scheherazade in the Tropics
Our sister Viviana had a special relationship with flowers. She whispered secrets to pink frangipani in clay pots, intimate details we were dying to know ourselves. In pictures, she…
Dinosaur Nuggets
Coop scuffs his slip-on sneakers down the hall of a thousand doors. Some of the doors have decorations. Wreaths, name tags, welcome signs. He hates those stupid welcome signs.…
Time of Death
When I run my fingers the wrong way down stalks of grass, they catch on the whorl of me. The world, it itches in me too, and the doctors…
The Dog Addresses Death
Don’t be afraid. I won’t rouse him. I was just dreaming of a long drive. He let me out to run in a forest of juniper and pinion. The…