Safe On my way to the obstetricianI pass a street of venders.Sparkling jewels reflect Soho light,hand-knitted hatsparade without heads,art set up like an obstacle courseon the sidewalk. One tabledisplays a collection of onesiesand infant rock tees. Marleypuffs in the center of one, next toJoplin, her mouth wide open.I eye Dylan, his rainbow hairwild as Medusa’s […]
“Safe” and “The Line” Read More »
Last Christmas, I was having coffee one morning with a friend at Starbucks. We hadn’t seen one another in a while and our conversation was involved. Suddenly, someone approached our table. I immediately recognized her as a woman who is a member of the same fitness center in thesame strip mall where the Starbucks is
Do you need what I need? Read More »
The Road I have nothing to say to the man at the cross in the road. My fingers are loose at my sides; I will not point to the flowering thorn in his right hand or the black-rotting pear in his left. He knows my name; let him keep it. Let him eat his own
“The Road”, “Left”, and “We Were Wives” Read More »
Mother loved a good dichotomy. That’s how it seemed to the child. In her blue dress she was sedate and nurturing. Bedtime stories that would lull the child to sleep were chosen. Wrapped in her red shawl she was fierce and protective. Terrifying tales were told that were designed to excite into exhaustion. In summer
In Winter with Warm Tears Read More »
“I always knew my grandmother loved me. She saved me, gave me any confidence I have today, and her chocolate chip cookies were the best,” says my friend. Grandparents are a group of unsung heroes who deserve a standing ovation. Their impact is profound, their presence is a soothing balm, and their wisdom is increasingly
Superheroes in Sensible Shoes Read More »
Birth of the Blues Was it Miles Davis’ “Kinda Blue” bringing me home to you? Or the musical memories of our mutual histories? Scott Joplin and Jelly Roll laid back and fingering those piano keys, on an instrument played by Langston Hughes, Bontemps, Zora Neale and Countee Cullen while Black women danced a close sweating
Remembering. A beautiful word. And for the last decade, this was what Kathleen had done more often than during the years when most of her life remained ahead. Perhaps it was this afternoon’s dense fog, the gray whiteness that parched the color from the fresh green spring grass and the newborn leaves studding the oaks,
Reaching for the Moon Read More »
The Seventh Column Once again Diderot’s beautiful ruin standsin the corner of my mind,the great book-city he described in Les Bijoux Indiscrets. It stands there with its cupola and wings and spires;the vast cranes that have been thrown up over the roofs,the towers of every color and shape, like laments;the wide-open windows that look out
“The Seventh Column”, “Anemone”, and “Health and Safety” Read More »
Cobalt Tears Before his body can form the needed musclesTo uphold the soaking load of precious cobalt,He is sentenced to mine,Collect,And carry this mineral.Fragments of cobalt tucked beneath his nails from digging,Its dust in his lungs,His tears polluted with it asPhotographers bear witness to the iniquity of greed,Greed of his country, that owes a debt
Medusa. There’s a reason they call you that. It’s not so much the mythology course you teach, or the fact that your last name is Gordon, or the curly snakes of hair that tumble down your back—it’s your eyes. That famous penetrating gaze that should by all rights have the power to turn one to
