Gone

I heard about it by word of mouth, you knowThe way gossip starts small as within a familyThen blows outward … More

Life Masks

In art class we memorialized ourselves making plaster face castsA time stamp to last over all our years to comeOur … More

Before Fluoride

There’s something quirky about his eyesThey vibrate electric, left right left rightTwo butterflies trapped like ratsIn almond-round drains that swirl … More

You’re So Ambitious for a Juvenile

My guardian angel wasn’t there to protect meWhen my nose sucked in gobs of chlorinated waterMy eyes stinging and my … More

I guess I must have known some of them

Photos of kids in the bathtub with othersCan make you reflect on your childhood and shudderHow could parents think this … More

Flying My First Kite

We run together in the strong windThe two of us launching my first kiteHe’d made for meCutting and gluing the … More

One Way of Looking

This morning while I was working in the yardI looked up and saw a mynah birdPerched on a limb of … More

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Every Sunday my post-church treatIs a jumbo dill pickle from Wally’s SuperetteI can hear them calling to meFloating in their … More

Transformed to Tiklings tinikling

Now that we’re old enough at eight, I supposeWe learn the Filipino dance called TiniklingOur school is far ahead on … More

Iron Wrinkles

As I put on this aloha shirtI notice the collar’s not been ironed rightSomething my old eyes didn’t catch In … More

My name is Lanning, and I’m a floss-oholic

My addiction began with my bracesThe pain they brought bothering me as nothingCompared to the agonizing torture inflictedBy bits of … More

Escaping the Tree

In my dream, I told Kimo and Alta to stay put.  If that crying was the cat calling out, then … More

Rising Star

Christopher Kalama was gifted. A Mozart, some people said. At three, he picked up his father’s ‘ukulele. It looked like … More

Bed Bugs Bite

“Okay, honey, you’re all tucked in now, snug as a bug in a rug.” The little girl laughed. “I’m, not … More

To Reconnect

As the song goes, “They say that Maui nō ka ‘oi, and I agree.” Once upon a time, when he … More

Opening Wounds

One of the deals with the Lutheran Church was that after you slogged your way through Catechism and Confirmation, you … More

Another Challenge

       This happened a long time ago when I was young and stupid.  Maybe eight at the time, I was part of … More

Catching Up

I had a pretty lousy childhood, but my adulthood has been pretty good so far if you really want to … More

Direction

What happened to my compassI had it when I was a cub scoutLearning about directionsStuck in a drawer somewhereI hunt … More

The Writer Writes

I was sitting at a table outside Macy’s when the elderly Japanese woman bumped into my table.  She was carrying a … More