With their gray iron limbs, long waxy leaves, and fat blossom clusters, rhododendrons are both stately and homey. Throughout my childhood, I crawled under their uneven skirts, their bodies sheltering me, their leaves shielding me. There, between a soil floor and naturally thatched roof, I relished my sanctuary, and, in my mind, nothing could reach me there.
Then my grandfather came to town.
*
Back in the seventies, our Southern Appalachian neighborhood hummed with life, especially in summertime. Kids swarmed everywhere. We buzzed around, feral and wild, as if following invisible beelines that lured us across the hot streets down into the cool woods, then back home at twilight.
In the woods encasing our neighborhood, mushrooms gathered together, dark and silent like members of forest-dwelling covens.…
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This evening, I ended my walk
with a terrific skid.
Just as I recovered
the sun peeked out
from wherever it had been hiding,
to warm my neck and face
and the streetlights,
as if to share in my relief,
flickered to life.
It took me back,
to one of those flights
from Hawaii or Japan
that landed at LAX at dawn
We banked
and I could see
the sun’s earliest light
sharing the stage
with runway lights
backgrounded
by a city so calm
and gentle
I had to pinch myself
to remember where I was.
You and I no longer
worship the sun as god.
Yet doesn’t the sunset,
for all its colorful hallelujahs,
bring with it the same odd unease
that drove our
primitive ancestors to light
bonfires to coax
the sun back to life.…
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The holes in the heels of my shoes
admit snowmelt and tiny pebbles.
Slopping around the neighborhood,
exercising my fistulous heart,
I feel electric blue abstractions
riding the chill. Being alone
with the mist blown from the marsh
and the roadside puddles grinning,
I don’t have to explain to you
the absence that three quarters
of a century of living have imposed.
The short day draws on itself
like a gray man smoking a pipe.
I’d say, listen to the wind undress
the already half-naked trees—
but you’re at home stroking the cats
and reading about current events.…
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I met Lizzie when I was seven. If you’d told me then that 21 years later we’d be sat on my living room floor talking about whether she’ll ever get to try naan bread, I’d have been very confused. Firstly, it’s because we grew up on the Isle of Wight and naan had yet to cross the Solent in the 90s. Secondly, what we were talking about wasn’t naan bread at all.
Lizzie is getting married this year. She’s been with her fiancé for seven years. It’ll be a small gathering without any bridesmaids as otherwise there’d be no-one sat down. I’d like to start by stating she does want to get married. This conversation wasn’t so much a cry for help as a dawning realisation.…
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Mags leaned over the dessert case in the truck stop diner and sang out, “Look what they got today!” Her thick palms splayed atop the long case, wedding ring sparkling in the spotlights. Red flowery blouse curtained three long shelves of thick gooey fudginess and dripping fruitiness and stiff creaminess.
Deb hung back by the hostess podium, avoiding the case. She tried to block what Mags was saying, stop her mind from going into details. She had to be strong, focused. Her mission tonight ran counter to their standard Monday-night mission. But she had not told this to her friend and co-conspirator.
Mags heaved herself up and turned to face Deb, her full weight looking like an unmade bed. She brushed greying strands away from her face.…
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Three days after I stopped coughing,
I got dressed to leave the house.
Put on my oldest sneakers
Certain they’d be burned at the end of the night
Along with every other surface exposed to the virus.
Your scrubs are on inside out,
My wife said.
Prepared with full battle regalia:
Bonnet, face shield, N95 with another outer mask
Goretex suit, shoe covers, two pairs of gloves
All hopes pinned on extra layers of skin
Keeping bad things out and good things in.
Don’t take your gear off under any circumstances,
I instructed my team. We spent
13 hours afraid to drink water.
Sweat soaked, I stepped into rooms
To get phone numbers, call loved ones
Yellow gowns, blue tarps, red blood
Are all I see of those first shifts
We remember not knowing how this will end
And we don’t want to go back.…
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I walk every afternoon. I have been doing this since my heart surgery. “The River Kwai March” runs through my head, and I walk all around my suburban neighborhood to its marching tempo.
I was about nine or ten years old when my father took me to see “The Bridge on the River Kwai.” That movie made a lasting impression on me. Even today, at age seventy, emotions will wash over me whenever I hear the whistling of that song from the soundtrack. It opens the movie with World War II prisoners in a Japanese camp returning from a day of forced labor whistling as they march. They show a defiant spirit against the Japanese, against death. An orchestra joins in as if it supports their spirited dignity.…
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