When a Quartet of Quarters Does Not Answer

A quartet of quarters is a dollar. A dollar does not sing, although the coins ring when you drop them into a vagabond’s fiddle box. And if, under the long shadows and orange light of morning, that vagabond fiddle is joined by a rag-haired guitar, a withered old crone of a cello, and a quavery … Continue reading When a Quartet of Quarters Does Not Answer →

Somebody Finally Tells Chesty

Hey, Chesty Deigndoun, sometime—sometime why don’t you just—get out of your insidious I, I, I; your primping, pouting me, me, me, me drama; your profane my, my, my orgasm; our salacious mine, mine, mine plundering. Get out of yourself, Chesty, and look up at the sun, and know it is not a glowing light bulb, … Continue reading Somebody Finally Tells Chesty →

You are Refugee

I am worried about my fellow citizens’ casual dismissal of the refugee’s humanity. So I have devised an experiment that may enhance their latent and lovely compassion. Here it is: On the coldest afternoon in winter, take your youngest child or grandchild on your snowmobile. Drive to the most isolated place you know of, somewhere … Continue reading You are Refugee →

That Last Door is a Killer

There were three doors for old Maddy Wilsawl to choose from, and all three of them exited into territories his seventy-five years had not prepared him for. Actually, he thought, there wasn’t much choice. He had come in one of them. Beyond it was a country in which cars drove themselves, people hired thieves to … Continue reading That Last Door is a Killer →

Identical is Boooooring

Gerard Manly Hopkins' "The Wind Hover, To Christ Our Lord" This poem by Hopkins does not have the identical of a parable wherein we might find explanations; rather here we have the raw edges of ambiguity rubbing to reshape chaos to the will of a Maker.

Last Blush

Alex looked into the coffin where their father lay. Rouged and all dressed up and nowhere to go, he thought. He shook his head. How machinations of undertakers steal the last vestige. “He don’t even look like Old Joe,” Joe D said. He shook his head. “Too much rose.” “In the pink,” Freddy said. His … Continue reading Last Blush →

Mary Oddledean Comments on Patience

"The patience," Mary Oddledean wrote in response to the question on the survey, "is what makes this job so wonderful. It don’t matter who brakes the rules or why, everybody weights quietly and politely until things are sordid out. Even during mock-up evacuations, nobody pushes, or shoves, or screams or swears. Especially, they don't swear, … Continue reading Mary Oddledean Comments on Patience →

Bird Woman Speaks

“I don’t suppose anyone here has ever heard of the Olicanucian Flyinitus,” Robin said. The fireplace light flickered and danced in her small obsidian eyes. “No, Robie, no,” Merle said. “These folk don’t need to hear your misadventures in the Pleistocene.” He spoke quickly and his voice trembled, and we sensed in his warning more … Continue reading Bird Woman Speaks →

Waiting Room

Four people, four devices-- Four wrinkles in the Universe. Four silences.

Have They Kept the Swallows in Capistrano this Year?

"I am certain that the Lord, who notes the fall of a sparrow. . . ." Thomas S. Monson No ill more nauseous than still white quiet in the catkin willow grove. Noise