for Jean Charity, March 2012 She’d just had the verdict: a huge shadow on both lungs. They’re not sure whether it’s the old one...

Cold sunlight blazes down onto snow. Already night approaches. The old sun is busy dying in the sky, leaning toward the west. Crows skim abo...

Pintos, cranberry, black bean pods hang straight & long— their sundried rattle startles me when I snip them off vines, three at a time, ...

          Let us forget with generosity those who cannot love us.           - Pablo Neruda Evening shadows pool beneath apple trees, se...

the raven-haired beauty caught me looking at her her uncomfortable smile gives me all i need to know J.J. Campbell (1976 - ?) is old enoug...

This is the delta. So much water oozes through and yet it seems to never move. That's an egret pecking in its shallows. And a couple of ...

Movies show resourceful characters thriving after fate strands them. Boat sinks, heroes work it out— a common TV Guide slug-line. By contras...

“I’ll be right there,” she said to the finches at the feeder. “I’ll be right back,” she told the cats, waiting for fresh food and water. So ...

She shuffles her late husband’s marked deck, lays out another game of solitaire on the kitchen table. She knows which face-down card is the ...

He wore a leather jacket custom-made at my father’s insistence and expense at the little shop below our hotel on the Gran Via. He was multi-...

Only this morning while waiting for the plumber (who is always late, but always comes), the thought came to me that waiting is what I'v...

By birth a Midwest Presbyterian Not given to creeds, He cheerfully went along When he took a Methodist bride, A daughter of the New South, S...

is not the state           of being alone; is most often felt    swallowed up            by smothering crowds    of humanity          ...

When I was five, I grabbed onto a live electric wire fence that wouldn’t let go. My grandfather, deftly rolling Prince Albert into OCB paper...

Made it to age 56. Survived mostly off Medicaid. Obviously had a difficult life, early polio leaving him permanently disabled: prosthetic le...

                     There must be something in books, something we can’t imagine,           to make a woman stay in a burning house; ...

Animals are slowly creeping into my life. An orange cat. A yellow Lab.   A motherless baby rabbit. And that’s just fine with me. As a kid,...

Gandy the tawny wolf picks me from a crowd of gawkers at the fence, leans in sniffing, studying. Gus the keeper says Gandy’s keying on your ...

You could say I knew him by his way of leaning into the path. He saw the ruts and chose to step into them. Never complained about mud, a fal...

After that, safety fell off, there was no before. It was just now. And the now filled all the spaces. What we were doing gained importance ...