The only thing you can count on in life is that in the end, you’ll be alone. Even all those people who died in an instant, in the inferno under the planes, in the cloud of debris during that moment when gravity blinked – they were alone, were standing next to other people who were alone, shaking their hands, maybe, or pointing the way to the Lincoln Memorial, or about to tell them that their left shoelace is untied. Because to die means something different to everyone.
You will sit on the curb among the half-fallen buildings and watch the glassless doorframe of the Q Street Kwik-Mart swing open, closed, open, closed and an empty bag of Santitas Tortilla Triangles – “Auténtico estilo Mexicano” – scootch down the gutter twenty yards away.…
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You search for signs everywhere. You can’t help it anymore—it’s a habit. You find it in the secrets the wind whispers to you. You find it in the stairs that don’t creak for the first time in seventeen years as you come down slowly. You see in it your dog Chase, who doesn’t wait for you at the bottom.
You think back to the last time that happened.
Never.
You think he might know. At least feel it. Faint music plays in the house. Classical music, your ears register distantly—from Dad’s extensive collection. He would know the whole story behind it. You can’t even remember the musician’s name.
Ice frosts in your veins, because of the memory, what it means that your brother is playing it.…
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My early life is charmed. I’m invulnerable. No such thing as tomorrow. February 1952, I’m six months old, and a childless Air Force lieutenant and his wife receive me at the Catholic infant home in Rock Hill, South Carolina. They love and care for me in their tiny Sumter apartment as best they can. Children want a forever happy story. In time, they learn more, but the worry-free child knows only now.
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Mom vacuums the forest green wall-to-wall with her Eureka at the new home we share with Nana and Granddaddy; the secure place to which we’ll return between transfers. I’m four and follow her as she cleans. A sudden shock of pain makes me reel near the open basement door. She’s fired a chunky vacuum cleaner brush hard at my tailbone, and I wail.…
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My vision today
Transcends that of all before
And still I seek more
I witness colors
You cannot identify
Nor could even name
Virgin resonance
That you denote only as sound
Enriches my ears
And taste: such richness
Cascades across my palate
So effortlessly
Each is alien
And equally elusive
And always will be
Haiku was never my strong-suit. It never had to be. Five syllables, then seven syllables, then five syllables have a Zen quality about it. I would like to tell you I wrote the poem, but I didn’t. Not in the normal sense. What I did was collect the words already suspended in the ether and arrange them in a pattern acceptable to the reader. No pen or paper. Neither a dictionary nor thesaurus. …
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We hand over our passports as part of the routine. The customs officer reads the country of origin and watches how I’m already taking my glasses off, from years of hearing that being requested. I watch my husband talk to the officer, I can’t seem to make out the words as my ears are still cloudy from the long flight. I rarely feel completely clear until an hour from landing.
“Do you work?” the officer asks me.
“I am not working but rather helping my husband succeed,” I respond. He gives me a blank stare and sure enough, no immediate follow-up.
“Where is your husband’s office located?”
“Los Angeles. Want me to get more specific?”
“Is he looking for a change of career? And yeah, I assumed it’s in LA County if you’re landing here.”…
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The smell of roasting coffee mixed with the funk of old coffee shop swirled in the air, just underneath the tang of stale cigarette smoke. Classic diner music played overheard as the rubbery seats underneath my ass cried under my shifting, restless weight. With the exception of a few lost souls sitting solo at the bar, coffee cups wrapped intimately around their index fingers and cupped warmly in their palms, we were the only two people in the out of the way truck stop at three in the morning.
I watched her across the laminate tabletop, her eyes fixated on the cup she swirled between her hands. A cigarette rested effortlessly between her cracked lips, it’s pungent plume flowing effortlessly into the depths of her diseased lungs and then back out into the air between us. …
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I couldn’t afford to eat at restaurants very much, but Jonathan convinced me that we should try this new place called “Squared.”
“What kind of food do they have?” I asked over the top of my laptop screen.
“I don’t know. It’s something new – farm-fusion or something like that,” he said.
“Okay,” I said. “Whatever you want.”
He came up behind me and wrapped his arms around my shoulders.
“I want what you want, too,” he whispered, warming my ear and sending a jolt through my body.
I flushed with warmth and nuzzled into his cheek. I started seeing Jonathan after our class in post-modern poetry. He wasn’t the kind of guy I normally dated. He wore skinny jeans and fitted flannel shirt like they were a uniform, and his saggy knit cap was always on his head.…
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