Alcohol by Franz Wright You do look a little ill. But we can do something about that, now. Can’t we. The fact is you’re a shocking wreck. Do you hear me. You aren’t all alone. And you could use some help today, packing in the dark, boarding […]
MoreIf I had any sense I’d be in the kitchen right now, chopping and endlessly washing mixing bowls and spatulas. Instead I’m sitting at the computer. I’ll pay for it tomorrow with panic and exhaustion, but meantime, here’s a few poems for Thanksgiving. At the grocery store I left Czeslaw Milosz’s”Encounter” in an empty […]
MoreI came to Starbucks to write a post about a few sweet gifts I’ve gotten from a few sweet people. As I stood in line I was debating how to write about my good fortune, given the horror in Paris, without sounding oblivious and tone-deaf. Maybe I shouldn’t write about it at all, I thought. […]
MoreThe Travelling Onion by Naomi Shihab Nye “It is believed that the onion originally came from India. In Egypt it was an object of worship —why I haven’t been able to find out. From Egypt the onion entered Greece and on to Italy, thence into all of Europe.” — Better Living Cookbook When […]
MoreThe Truth by Philip Schultz You can hide it like a signature or birthmark but it’s always there in the greasy light of your dreams, the knots your body makes at night, the sad innuendos of your eyes, whispering insidious asides in every room you cannot remain inside. It’s there in the unquiet ideas that […]
MoreThere’s a sad nip in the air this morning, a reminder to get the rest of my summer beach posts up before they’re as out-of-date as puka shells and jellies. I count myself among the most fortunate of souls that I got to return to Maryland this summer to spend a week at the beach with […]
MoreAlba by Jack Gilbert After a summer with happy people, I rush back, scared, gulping down pain wherever I can get it. I don’t like all my nicknames, but I can’t say I don’t deserve them. Debbie Downer is the one I earned for introducing grit to conversations of spun sugar. And […]
MoreI’m a stickler about thank-you notes, a real pain to my children after birthdays and Christmas, and self-righteous and judgey when my own presents aren’t acknowledged. And yet, as with other deep and firmly-held beliefs, I can be a hypocrite about applying the rules to myself. Which is all to confess that I haven’t sent […]
MoreYour baby grows a tooth, then two, and four, and five, then she wants some meat directly from the bone. It’s all over: she’ll learn some words, she’ll fall in love with cretins, dolts, a sweet talker on his way to jail. And you, your wife, get old, flyblown, and rue nothing. […]
MoreLast night I went to bed with Don Draper on my mind (Mad Men fans will understand) and woke up with Rosemary Tonks. Tonks is the eccentric British poet I discovered recently who seems as self-destructive and tortured as Don. – In Sunday’s Mad Men finale, Don has a breakdown at a hippie retreat center […]
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