The itching was ridiculous. It was a fluttering torture, a soft-bristle brush teasing tormented nerve endings, making me want to laugh and cry, but mostly cry. It was like being tickled by a loving, giggling sadist.
It started in my toes — well, one toe actually. The big toe on my left foot. But the teasing, tortuous feeling didn’t take long to migrate to the other toes and onto the rest of my feet. The itch moved as it willed, meandering cruelly.
It started at night, kicking in just as I closed my eyes to sleep after a long day’s work. I didn’t know it at the time, but the night before that night was the last decent sleep I would ever have in my bed.…
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The pair looks strikingly similar. Like sisters, although not twins. Dark, short hair, blue eyes, nice smiles, casual t-shirts, and jeans. Neither speaks right away, each seems to be waiting for me to begin. The one on the right has an eagerness to her, slightly leaning forward, expectant. The other, on the left, is comfortably seated with her back against the chair, posture perfect, tranquil.
I’m not sure who to address first since I’d asked them both to come. When life puts you in between things with no clear direction, I thought it best to get second opinions—from both sides. Then the one on the right, Ms. Expectant, clears her throat slightly, to which Ms. Tranquil acknowledges the break in silence, shifting her torso to the side and then back again to her peaceful neutrality.…
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It was early afternoon, Wednesday, October 5, 2022, a beautifully sunny and warm, almost hot day, and, having just finished booking a January 2023 holiday to Dublin, I sat back at my desk and gazed out my loft windows, thinking of a way to celebrate. It would be my second trip back since I’d obtained my Irish passport during the COVID pandemic, which I now proudly owned in addition to my Canadian passport and green card, and even though my trip was still over three months away, the prospect of once again returning to Ireland had me super-excited.
“Maybe I should just go to the White Sox game instead,” I said to myself after briefly considering taking a nap on the couch. Normally the regular season would have ended the previous week, but on account of the league’s spring lockout, play had been extended into October.…
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The directions were as follows: Apply a one-inch strip of toothpaste onto a soft-bristle toothbrush. Brush teeth thoroughly for at least two minutes twice a day (morning and evening) or as recommended by a dentist. Do not swallow. Spit out after brushing.
He wasn’t sure whether his toothbrush was a soft-bristle toothbrush. It may have been a medium- or hard-bristle toothbrush toothbrush. The toothbrush was old. He’d thrown away the packaging on the day he’d opened the toothbrush. Or within a few days thereafter, anyway. He wasn’t a slob. He examined the toothbrush. It bore no indication of the type of bristle, unfortunately. As a matter of fact, the only word to be found on the toothbrush was the name of the manufacturer. For the purpose of corporate branding.…
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Let’s say you’re on your last thin string
of hope your kids are hungry
you’ve lost
your minimum wage job with no benefits
your 2006 Chevy needs a new muffler
two rear tires an o-ring
for the oil
leak and your left wisdom tooth aches like hell
Your string of hope frayed and a little wet
is in your pocket one early spring
morning
as the sun rises on the first robin you see
Let’s say you smile Let’s say you feel
the face of the world slowly turning toward you
so you
warm your hands on a cup of tea and begin to sing
– David James
Author’s Note: I wanted to write a poem of hope since I found myself writing mostly “end of time” poems as I got older.…
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At Nicolet High School in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in March 1957, students, known as auditorium hosts, collected tickets, distributed programs, and escorted classmates and guests to their seats. I sat with my mother in the auditorium at a special event. A host walked by our aisle seat.
“Dicky,” she touched my arm. “Such nice boys and girls.”
“No.” I slumped lower in my seat.
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A week later I pondered my terse reply. Hosts were theater majors, part of a group of college-bound kids known as academics. I ran with a group of friends who fixed old automobiles. Hot rods, we called our cars. Hosts and academics called us greasers. School athletes, also known as jocks, made up the rest. Sometimes jocks joined academics, never greasers.
Three divisions of students.…
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it’s raining rats and dogs
or ferrets and hampsters,
carp and salamanders—
hell, you know what I mean, a hard rain
smacking the windows and grass,
pooling into mini-lakes in our back yard.
the sump pump, my hero,
is working on a fifteen second rest cycle.
i guess we need it, it’s spring and all,
flowers and bushes and trees taking in the rain
to create, again, our garden of Eden
minus the apple tree which we cut down
with the full knowledge
it was dying. a mercy kill. but it’s stuck forever
in my memory of this place
which we call home, for now.
there’ll come a time
when we’ll have to sell, when this house
will be a burden
we can’t manage, and some new family will move in,
two kids and a dog, and the house will wrap its arms
around them, and it will become their home,
not ours.…
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