to be a discoverer you hold close whatever you find, and after a while you decide what it is. Then, secure in where you have been, you turn to the open sea and let go. –William Stafford, from “Security” Is the path to the waterfall an ascent or a descent? Descents have a bad reputation … Read more
Gogi? I remember saying. Is that your real name? She said something to me, something impertinent I’m sure, that was lost in the whirring of the blender. Grasshopper? she said a moment later, offering me a thick green drink in a jelly jar. I swear, I said, I could drink these all night. I do, … Read more
Maybe you’ve seen my tongue limping in circles, yoked to the whip hand of my brain, sinking further and further into the muck. The words don’t come out the way they’re supposed to, or the way they used to. Something happens. Happened. It’s like when you take a picture and the print looks nothing like … Read more
All summer I’ve had a retired shop teacher in my skull, trying to teach himself to play the marimba. I liked it better when he stuck with hammers and power tools. I know my tongue’s tucked away somewhere in my face, but I can’t feel the damn thing. The world outside my windows looks like … Read more
This guy comes in and says to me, “What’s your goal here? What’s the big idea?” He was a huge man, seriously overweight and clearly laboring to balance there before me at the counter. Moist, wheezing, one of these characters who’s always swiping at his forehead with a handkerchief, and something of a throwback, I … Read more
–Senior Citizen Center. Livingston, Montana Ella was on the front porch, blowing into an empty bottle with a straw, shivering a fly that was trapped there at the bottom. The fly was woozy and slick with cola, and was rolling and tumbling in the little bottle hurricane that Ella was producing with her straw. The … Read more
I’m not kidding you, for about twenty seconds I thought I was looking at a giant snail, and I mean a really giant snail, just the soft, slimy part without the shell, maybe six feet tall and walking upright –or creeping– like a man. I saw the thing come slowly through the hedgerow at the … Read more
–Senior Citizen Center. Livingston, Montana The other night I dreamt I was in a boat floating in thick fog, talking to God. Look, He says to me, I’m just hoping to catch a few fish. I didn’t come down here to listen to you bitch. I wouldn’t think you’d need to fish, I said. … Read more
In room eleven there was an old snapshot with serrated edges taped to the mirror above the dresser, a photo of a dark-haired woman, her eyes closed and her head tilted slightly back, standing in a dark angle of shadow. Outside the shadow the sun was shining on an impossibly bright pastel world and a … Read more
Here are your waters and your watering place. Drink and be whole again beyond confusion. —Robert Frost, “Directive” I am looking back into a world now gone forever. Thinking of a time that will never return. A book of photographs is looking back at me. Twenty-five years of looking for the right road. Post cards … Read more