Carpool

I’m not sure why you and I called it a carpool. It wasjust we two, and I always drove. There … More

Puzzling

She turns both the box cover and bottom over, taps themon the coffee table, asks me did I hide the … More

Soundproof

For the first two years in Madison, I live in Susan Bradford Hall. It’s on Greek Row. Once a dorm … More

New Ways To Love

Sarah’s grave looks new, well newer, and spreads outto a green grass field, the unfilled spaces for future use,to be … More

Covid, I tell you, too sick to write. But I think I’m back. This draft is called “King of the Lily Pond”

Ed reads the draft of his story. It’s about Joe, his oldest cousin, tall and broad, much more so than … More

Time Travel

To my dismay, I’ve found I have no copy of Jane Eyreat home. I’d wanted to reread it after all … More

Silent Fireworks

I tested positive Saturday morning, and have livedwith covid, the fever, the chills, and the body ache,since, but now, as … More

Covid, I tell you. Forgot to publish yesterday’s poem called “Out of Time”

It must be younever really caughton, weren’t smartenough to know,or weren’t thinkingabout how true lovemight grow when you could. Throughtime it … More

The Funeral

There is no one who knows a father’s kneebetter than a child who wraps his armsaround that knee and clings to it like … More

Fever

When you see your shadowfollowing you around, youmay imagine someoneworking for the FBI, CIA,or any of those surveillanceagencies has been … More

At the Movies

Follow the yellow brick road with me. Seethe cornstalks, their long sheathed greencobs, how they snap to attention in front … More

A Head in the Honey Pot Forever

Unbelievable that it’s all come down to this, the tossingin of the handful of soil and the long stemmed roseto … More

Disease

Why do I remember how elm treesdied along the avenues in Madison?Blighted. Some disease. Blamethe Dutch? Really? What an honorto … More

Under the Sun

The languor of summer days, a drop of sweat.Hit the napkin, plop on the word “miss.” It’sMezcal time here, and … More

The Beast

Rolling down his window, “Beware,” he said. “There is some beast in there. These old houses. It’s easy for them … More

I lost a good friend and mentor yesterday

Jim Harstad was my 11th- and 12th-grade English teacher. He’s been a huge influence in my life, one of the … More

Haven’t you learned anything? she says

What is it you see out there?  What do you hear? My woman standing at the window staring out into the … More

Episode #10 of my third Lt. David Chan Hawai’i-based crime story is now available on the Kindle Vella platform

Gaze

I squint, and even though I oddly see you tiny and distorted through the peephole, I can make out her … More

And Justice for Some

I stood there, frozen by what I was seeing. The woman, attempting to run out her front door, screamed for … More