Category: Family

  • One-winged bird

    On a wall of my mother’s parents’ living room hung her siblings all in a row and a photo of Grandpa’s family. It took me 68 years to ask where was grandma’s family. A simple answer, a dark secret or just the misogyny of an old German family. I’ll never know. The whys of this…

  • Rain

    Checking in with a friend a single mom. a public school teacher. She’s worried about her daughter and her job; afraid that one of them could end up sick in this pandemic. She wants to quarantine at home and can’t. She needs her job and they need each other. I listen to her as rain…

  • a binary life

    Sitting on the porch she opens the door says, “It’s too hot” You use pen and paper to flesh a poem a computer to bone it Your computer complains slows down and threatens to abandon you You are a peacemaker in a binary world and tear out the page and go inside 7-23-20

  • Inside

    I still think of dad and how he wouldn’t crawl inside our backyard tent because he knew what the inside of a tent looked like And he vowed that if he survived the war he’d never stick his head inside a tent, again _____ I always wanted a gun to shoot and hold in my…

  • Indiana summers

    Tonight, I can taste braunschweiger on white bread Red Kool-Aid that left a smiley face Peaches so juicy I ate them on the back steps and Fudgesicles that dripped down my chin onto my shirt I remember playing kick ball in the street Chicken on my bicycle and never turning away Freeze tag and hide-n-seek…

  • Ladle by the well

    In the Great Depression, Grandpa lost the farm moved the family to town To a little house with a well in the yard between the coal shed and cellar door Momma said he hung a ladle by the well sometimes placed extra garden produce on a chair Before a cinder block room was built over…

  • The Gate

    On a nail two flasks of light hang wait for rifles shots that shatter set free light Gateway of the Sun 7-9-20 **Baha’i Holy day, martyrdom of the Bab

  • Fried hotdogs

    Fried hot dogs split down the middle Yellow mustard on a plate green olives straight from the jar This is not health food or a recipe from Southern Living This is childhood memories hot summer days on the end of a fork You can savor and burp in the middle of the night 7-2-20