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Too Late

An absent mother, a misplaced lover, a selfish child

Glide Path

They had circled for fifteen minutes before heading into the airport from the east, over the Hudson, across the turnpike. They should have come in from the north or south.

Poet

I had come to Yellow Springs for the Antioch Writers Workshop, an annual event on the Antioch College campus. My college writing teacher and advisor, the poet Jud Jerome, was an integral part of the workshop.

It Starts With M

My grandmother regularly receives letters from my dead father. I’m on my way to see her now with one of them. Uncle Kirby wrote it. He writes them all.

The Lurch

He stands naked at the end of his dock. His body isn’t used to the cold anymore, and goose bumps rise on his sagging skin.

Waiting

For a parent to come home, for the funeral of a friend, for a lover to arrive

Compromising Pictures

Humboo

The effect was psychedelic: Dad heard colors and saw sounds. The people who were most crucial during his first twenty-one years of life — his parents, grandparents, brother, aunts, uncles — flashed by in a hallucinogenic parade of fiery color.

Mrs. Diest

She had lung cancer that had metastasized to her spine, liver, abdomen — everywhere except her brain. She was aware and alert and could feel it all. When I would come into the room, she’d ask me if I would help her die; she couldn’t go on this way. In those days, a patient would have to wait three hours between pain shots.

Sunbeams

You see I thought love got easier over the years so it didn’t hurt so bad when it hurt, or feel so good when it felt good. I thought it smoothed out and old people hardly noticed it. I thought it curled up and died, I guess. Now I saw it rear up like a whip and lash.

Louise Erdrich