I have been watching them for years. They are so familiar to me, yet I know nothing about them. Not where they live, not even their names. Today I see them and I wonder what brought them to this point in their lives together.
The towering tray of leftover Thanksgiving fare remained intact as I struggled to open the hospital room door. My sister sat poking cloves of cinnamon into an apple, hooked to happy juice.
Last I knew she was living 900 miles away. She got married in a cave. Now divorced.
As I placed the milk into my cart, I glanced across the aisle. My heart skipped. I crossed the aisle with a singular purpose. Was it infatuation? Kismet? I didn’t care.
As kids, my sister and I carefully plucked their velcro feet off the bark to keep the empty bodies intact: ghost bugs, we called them …
Jasper raced into the house and hollered, “Adrian’s been hit by a car.” I rolled my eyes. (Jasper lived a life of excitement even when none existed.)
The first time she left she walked out into the night without a coat, but returned within a few hours and it was as if it had never happened. The next time, months later, was as abrupt, but this time she took me with her.
As the bus pulled away, I twisted around in my seat to watch her wave. How long did she stay on the porch, coatless in December, watching the bus go down the street?
Carried into the room, you were still and quiet. I thought to myself, “He is incredibly handsome.” My new son.
House hunting, I spotted the rancher, empty but not posted for sale. I boldly parked the car in the drive. The wide street was quiet. I stepped forth.
I promised Jack that we would make a pudding from my childhood but now, I regret it.
The first live show I ever saw was the comedy duo Cheech & Chong at Toronto’s Massey Hall, circa 1974. My buddy Frank D’Lazzaro’s older brother Ricky scored the highly coveted tickets from his biker drug dealer.
At four I was low to the ground, down with squashed lettuce leaves, oozing tomatoes, where the rotten-vegetable smell was the strongest.
Ah, I thought, graduation in the stadium. I smiled, remembering when my daughters graduated from Humphrey Middle School. I soon discovered I was wrong.
There’s an earlier flight! Running full speed through the airport, we plop our exhausted butts down for the final leg of our trans-Atlantic trip.
I’m alone when he vrooms past me with taillights bright as Christmas. Don’t go. Drive a while with me on this lonely road and let me imagine your fabulous life.
Bus-stop hung like bee-hive over sleepy township. Two women and I, five junior school kids, someone’s grandpa. The girls, careful of their gait, ironed-skirt pleats. Boys, throwing sand over each other’s shoes.
A few years ago, I was volunteering removing ivy from an area around the tool yard of Tryon State Park south of Portland Oregon. Two police cars showed up and informed me that they had a coyote with a broken back that had to be killed because the injury was fatal.
I was sailing in at five knots, leaning my back against the mast. She waved.
The abandoned hat stands beside an enormous pair of boots, behind a chain-link fence.