-to my husband, a week before stem cell transplant Today we listen to Clapton's melancholic rendition of Autumn Leaves and remote our way through news and weather channels to learn more about the fury of Hurricane Ian in the gulf, keenly aware of the ensuing winter...

We lie. Othello lied, Clinton and Nixon, Jay Gatsby and King David, too, the results often as consequential as today’s climate change. Babies fake-cry, and children blame other children when they get into trouble. We cheat on our spouses, we concoct elaborate hoaxes,...

Beauty and happiness come! Unexpectedly in the single seconds that make up our days. They come as two mourning doves umbrellaing together under the branches of the lacy, tea-green fern just outside the rain-flecked window. They come as the Japanese Beetle, its...

—to my husband, recently diagnosed with rare and debilitating disease Today I’m thinking about my legacy, what I can hope for, what I might achieve. I will never be a Beethoven, a Mozart, a Picasso or a Keats, will never be crowned with an olive wreath nor Ticktok my...

She saved Sunbeam bread bags and Piggly Wiggly’s brown grocery bags and salvaged the grease from today’s fried chicken for tomorrow’s cooking of pork chops, the crust settling to the bottom of the two-pound Maxwell House coffee can, weighty, like honey in whiskey. She...

-with a line from Mary Oliver I’m child seven born the seventh month. I do not have to be good because I am already perfect, you see. The prime, boasting about the seven wonders of the world on everyone’s bucket list, singing of seven colors of the rainbow and the...

The spider, Nature’s mystery. To leave home her first need, To escape the devouring of family. Through her jeweled and silkened weave, She sends warnings and receives messages. Her gossamer ensnares, Her venom paralyzes. Humans, like spiders, Liquidate their kind — If...

–After Danusha Laméris and Ted Hughes The heart is not a gate. A door that opens and closes at someone’s will. Not automated. Not smartphone- controlled. It is not a soft start and stop and could even develop jerks and skips and flutters over time. It comes with no...

The new year is a road of curiosities and surprises, possibilities at every turn. Open your eyes wide and lean into the curves. Feel the wind against your skin and hold your breath for sudden drops and fast declines. Look left to see laurel mantling the mountainside,...

—after George Flegel’s Dessert Still Life (1620s) and Carl Sandburg’s Four Preludes on Playthings of the Wind We have our moments, the scenes perfectly set. Maybe we’re romping in the autumn field just after sunset, hay freshly-cut and baled, suffused in soft blue...