Landscape of Freckles
I am borne of a landscape of freckles. My mother, her father, his mother: the Williams and Shepherds, the English and Welsh. The bounty of peach farms, peace roses and quiet spirituality.
Stories Poems Essays
This poem was once a bird
This poem was once a bird | An eagle in fact | Whose span of wing | And accurate sight | Was the stuff that legend makes.
Community Garden
I’m holding your drawing. It’s more of a map, really, a magic-marker rendering of your family’s redesign. Embellished stick figures rise…
Because the Sparrows
Common as pennies, they mob the feeder, empty it in a day— nothing left for finches, wrens, chickadees— birds from the genus Passeridae, meaning flutterer.
After Birth
These poems, (Siblings, Digging, and Reflection,) are a representation of some of the intense emotions I’ve experienced over the past few years, following the stillbirth of our first daughter, Braylie.
Stay With Me
They say that life has a way of giving you exactly what you need when you least expect it. That when one life ends, another is born.
Semi Colon
There are days, sometimes weeks, when you don’t even think about it. Then, one day, in front of the bathroom mirror, you face the glaring reminders. Three scars.
Rhythm
“Wake up! Michael’s stopped breathing. We gotta go.” The voice seems familiar, perhaps a childhood playmate’s. I cling to sleep…
I Can’t Even Get to Hell
After the first of my many cousins died from cancer, the extended family started getting together every August to picnic in Westchester County, New York.