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Afterlife
Essays, Memoirs & True Stories
What You Think About
You hang up the cellphone and think about how the surgeon cleared his throat again and again as he asked how you were, then said, “I have the best news of bad news,” and you think how you knew what he was going to say as soon as you heard his voice.
September 2009
Essays, Memoirs & True Stories
Lessons In Dying
Nothing lives forever, but it seemed wrong that a child should have to face death. Death was for people who had lived their lives, tasted happiness, made mistakes, and had a chance to make amends; it was not for babies.
December 2007
Fiction
What The Dead Know
It began in the hospitals with what seemed to be an epidemic of miracles. The most recently dead came back first. People whose heartbeats had just flat-lined a second earlier suddenly sat upright on their gurneys and beds and looked into the confused faces of those around them.
October 2004
Essays, Memoirs & True Stories
Stronger Than Death
If, on a visit to St. Benedict’s Monastery in Colorado, you were to drive about a half mile beyond the main turnoff, there on your right you’d come upon a washed-out driveway leading to an abandoned ranch house known as the Stanley place.
February 2003
Poetry
Stepping Out Of The Body
Like someone stepping / from a pair of dirty overalls, / turned inside out on the bathroom floor, / I step from my body.
February 2003Essays, Memoirs & True Stories
Hell
Ten minutes into a recent flight from San Jose to St. Louis, I was reveling in a first-class upgrade and a new Margaret Atwood novel when I felt and heard a powerful thump. The aircraft, which had been gaining altitude, rocked vigorously.
February 2002
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