Nursing Mother Dreams of Chagall
Something loosens, the grip of gravity slipping as sleep approaches. A buoyant heart rises, wanting its own view. And why not—here, now the roof the floor, and heaven there for…
My Daughter’s Teeth, My Father’s Beard
My daughter wants to lose her teeth. All her friends have: Gavin, Gabi, Brooke and Morgan, Samantha, Matt, Rebecca and Riley. She’s started banging into doorjambs mouth first. I tell…
Easter, 2012
My daughter picks the painted eggs from under the juniper bushes that line the path as maples weep last night’s rain and the sun apologizes for being absent. My daughter’s…
The Broken Story
So we decided to fill in the baby book the same weekend I got the snip— something to do while I lay in bed recovering from the pull in my…
Cleaning House
Sister, it’s just about done and we’re in the clear, safe in the day’s margin. Make me one of those bourbon drinks with a quarter key lime and let’s perch…
Stations of the Cross
Someone had taken an axe to my life which meant that although everything was in pieces we needed a Christmas tree if only for the children to gather round as…
Christ Stopped at Hollesley
My mother asked me to take a turkey to my sister who lives on the other side of the heath. Mother said, Your sister lives on the other side of…
The Street of Measuring Scales
In the town below the mountain, a street through which a bridge rushes. On the corner facing the world, a pub, “To the Holed Fluffy Coat.” Opposite, a small house…
I’m Homesick for being Homesick
It’s time to dress up in the clothes of the dead is what mother said when she’d spent the afternoon making chicken stock. I wore my father’s yellow socks and…
A History of Ghosts
“It thunders. It thunders.” An ocean is a form of cruelty. Coincidental sheets against a coincidental mattress. In the beginning, people shouted. The gods fell upon the earth like sandpaper.…