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Somewhere North of a Border
My husband, finally irritated with me, tells me to leave him alone while he finishes changing the tire. I am happy to do so. Leaving the smell of hot rubber behind is a blessing. He’s doing it wrong anyway, so this is going to take a while. We took a wrong turn off a New…
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A Shooting
As I’m waiting to go up to the choir stands, a girl from the middle school asks me how I ended up in a wheelchair. There’s no malice in her question, no insult. She’s just curious. There’s a small ramp put in just for me, just for this occasion on the school football field. The…
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At Least I’m Not a Serial Killer: A Podcast and a Poem
On Wednesday I had the chance to sit down with my buddies Holly and Carley, the hosts of We’re All Fine–a podcast in which they chat about all kinds of life affirming things, personal struggles, and basically whatever comes into their minds to chat about. It’s delightful. And we got together to talk about that…
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Juniper
In the light of day, six months ago, when she bought the house, the bushes seemed lovely. Charming hedgerows, grown six feet high, provided privacy and a fence of sorts. A wrought-iron gate, only three feet high, filled a gap between the bushes and blocked off the cracking walkway to solicitors. Sure, the brown grass…
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Leafy & Striped Zen Doodle
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Strange Water
1. Constance Gramercy hadn’t attended Harvard and Yale, survived fifteen years in the Space Force, battled her way through the astronaut training program, left her two children behind, and divorced her asshole ex-husband just to die on Mars. She took another deep breath of plastic-smelling oxygen and forced one booted foot in front of the…
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Red Cut Out Neurographic Doodle
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Only the Wind
There are no streetlights in the new development just outside of town, only the dark outlines of modern square homes silhouetted in the half-moon light. Eerie shadows give the xeriscaped lawns a strange texture. If the boxy houses gentrifying this borderland between Elephant Butte and Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, aren’t enough to make the…
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Turquoise & Yellow Zen Doodle
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Leftovers
Archie always told me good food was about layers of flavor. When he taught me how to season, he explained the necessity of salt and acid. He showed me how to cook and plate a dish so that it hits your tongue in the right areas, filling the space in your mouth with umami, starting…
