“Let’s address the elephant in the room,” said the sustainability expert.
“Let’s address the elephant in the room,” said the sustainability expert.
“You never know until it’s too late,” my 90-year-old mother says.
All day I've thrashed in bed, pinned like a butterfly to my dreams. When I rise, darkness has fallen.
I asked her over dinner: If I were to change my name, what should I change it to?
“You don’t believe me,” my stricken mother said between sobs.
I flew to Chicago to hold her hand, but when I reached for it, tubes, tape, and a stent were in the way.
In the cramped kitchen, country ballads drift from the RCA on the counter.
In addition to the parapet of Beanie Babies bordering his desk, I envied Andrew his hitchhiker’s thumb.
I’m told she skipped school.
It’s that moment after everyone is gone, all your friends, new and old …
My pulse hit below 30. Worse than the previous times.
I didn’t bring two mugs of tea up to bed this morning. Just an Earl Grey for me.
I wake up sweating because the electricity is out again.
My hands have been shaking more than usual.
The power lines stretch like a musical score, the perching birds a sonata unplayed.
A boy-man too young to be a doctor diagnosed me with Holiday Heart.
I stroke my late grandmother’s silver spoon, hung around my neck with black ribbon.
… I saw Chessie, chair bouncing behind, running up 18th Street …
I enter the kitchen through the crackle of bacon and my parents’ anger.
No one else in the hall was in love like we were, not my friends at the table sipping Cinzano, not the DJ, not even the other smooching couples.