I would like to be still and know simple things, like your eyes, feel the breeze, warm water, the hem of your blouse on my wrist, without telling a story, but I remember when you met me in the belly of the big fish cannery that summer in Uganik Bay. You pressed my wet hand [...]
A well-read homeless man stopped me on the sidewalk. He asked if I could spare some change. I told him I was a starving writer, bashfully offering up a buck thirty-five and a bus transfer. He said,”I’m working on a book and my editor is really hounding me for a draft, which is funny,” laughing, [...]
The square was crowded at La Villa de Guadalupe. With my thumb in the appendix of a guidebook, I watched you hold a map, nonchalantly pointing at a man selling plastic roses to tourists. You said I love you in Spanish, which is easy to say when it’s a lie, but near impossible when it’s [...]
Do you remember that old plum tree in the front yard? We used to pick the plums and put them in a large, aluminum mixing bowl, anxious for Mom to make jam. And we would bring them in, all proud, like we had helped the family. Our first fruits. But the first fruits shall be [...]
A cigarette in my left hand and a rosary in my right, I hit the bottle for the last time that Wednesday in February. But here I am, after a week, with my finger in an ashtray, making the sign of the Cross on my forehead, now for the third time, a hundred Lord-have-mercys slurring [...]
I have never looked up to an older brother. I have never asked with sincerity for my brother to come to my recital, my soccer game, my concert, my high-school graduation, my college graduation. I have never asked my older brother what it means to love and what it means to experience loss. My brother [...]
There is a powerful lie we all believe: that we are worthy of love on our own account, by what we do. We stand on top of this mountain of pride, believing that we are the center of the world. Yes, this is a great lie. But it is not the most powerful lie. There [...]
There is a depletion of prayer burning in the atmosphere of my life. I am not always honest with you. I simply refuse to open up to all that I am in you, to the things I do not even know are there. I need you to bury yourself in them, deep in my heart; [...]
There is joy here. It is warm by the fire. In this home. It is mine. It is ours. It is not mine. The bookcases tower above me and I have seen its titles since I was a child, but I still do not know what they say. I read them over and over. They [...]
I open up my computer and read the e-mail. It is not nearly as terrifying as I had imagined. But it comes with advertisements, courtesy of Google. “Statewide Fence Company,” fencing for farms and ranches. I’ve heard it said that good fences make good neighbors. I still don’t know what that means, but she is asking [...]
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