Humanity: Raw & Unfiltered
Ghost imprint in the wall holds a hand shape Small boy presses into brick and mortar to disappear Invisibly thin sucking in his air – forgets to release an exhale No noise invisible boy becomes fresh paint As he dries on the breath of someone who should not— have touched Read more
“Non-existence I call the beginning of Heaven and Earth. Existence I call the mother of individual beings,” Tao Te Ching. It had been sweltering hot all day, in the hundreds the radio said. I didn’t see much of the outside as Mama pulled down blinds in every room to keep us from roasting Read more
Growing up in the South, she never felt she fit in, being way too serious and none too popular. She came north to be educated, and, leaning to the law, clerked for a federal judge and joined the Justice Department. Reared among D.C. sophisticates, her daughter returned to the South. Read more
Emma had been kicked out of her house. This was a first, for Emma or for her siblings, and it really did not strike her as fair. She had not actually done anything, as in, performed an action or committed a crime. All she did was remind her mother of Read more
I will not be there when you are the age I am now— this we must face. I waited to have you for reasons that are old rags of memory from clothes I wore before you. In today’s mirror I see you, orphaned, in your diaphanous future— thin skin, fragile Read more
Mr. Harley was one of those fun, quirky uncles who filled a room, except he wasn’t family. He was always at our house. I can clearly picture him perched up on dad’s ladder, a roll-your-own smoke dangling from his bottom lip, one long muscled arm holding a ream of wallpaper Read more
Blue paisley when she feels humble Green polka dots when the beauty parlor is closed Stars and stripes for the Fourth Red and green for Yuletide Magenta for seducing the department chair Navy blue for telling my father it never happened Pink and yellow for the parent-teacher conference Beige to Read more
They say “the body remembers.” Somewhere in my mind, the intrusive sound of the soles of men’s sensible shoes slapping onto the shiny floors throughout the corridors still haunts me now and then. Sitting on a shelf labeled “incongruity,” the sudden thunder of racing footsteps filling the hushed, echoey hallways Read more