21
Jan 11, 2019
From my bedroom, where I stand folding clothes, pressing my mama hands flat against warm shirts, smoothing out the lines, I can hear Zoe laughing. That laugh of hers, it’s like the wings of a thousand birds flying free. Her door is closed, but I know that when I tap my fingers against it; when […]
22
Apr 27, 2018
When we round the corner, she gets up from where she sits, pushing open the door. I can see the cold, straight legs of a card table through a narrow opening; I can tell she has hair the color of straw, that she wears a rose-colored shirt. Even before she stands in the doorway holding […]
23
Jan 19, 2018
At first, Riley can’t see. Bright Sunday morning, and we’re just inside the building where the church meets saying hello, a bunch of mismatched, layered-up family wearing reunion smiles, and I see her bending over her clipboard, too low, too close, one eye flat closed like a patch and the other just barely a slit. […]
24
Oct 27, 2017
On the field, a tangle of feet, tennis shoes slick with wet, flat grass, green-smeared on Converse white. Some of the kids sprint, others twist and skitter, like wind-blown seeds. It’s a game, a favorite: the prey try to make it across the field to grab up a bit of foam “food” in their fists, one […]
25
Aug 26, 2016
Buttonhooks, he says. Buttonhooks? The zucchini in my hand drips. I run a thumb over a crack in its waxy green skin, listening. “Buttonhooks! ButtonHOOKS!” He tries hard to annunciate; I can hear each letter’s effort, the work to shape it with his tongue. Placing vegetable on cutting board, I turn toward him, leaning to see […]
26Jun 12, 2015
I wish I had thought to take a picture of them, sitting there with me. Me, all hulled out and bare—wearing my soft pants and no makeup, because with them I can. And them—six of my close friends–using their smartphones (of all things) and their words and their hands that can’t be still in the […]
27Jun 5, 2015
I really don’t know what to say anymore, she says to me, and I understand, because when you say everything true and it doesn’t seem to make a difference you finally run out of words. They drain and fall away, leaving only echoes like bits of fluttering ash. And in the aftermath of a wordy, difficult […]