Constant Stalker

The bus is late. The afternoon sun is merciless. “Bad accident,” one of the dozen of us waiting announces without looking up from studying the screen of his cell phone. “Bus had to be rerouted.” “How long?” a woman asks, futilely fanning herself with an envelope from...

Let me Show You a Lake

This is the lake and the grassy bank where Paula and I sat together, mesmerized by water and its connection to our touching heads. Here is where willows dipped their outer branches to sip and mallards cruised the rippling surface. Here occurred kisses I remember as...

The Mysterious Human Heart in Texas

after Dorianne Laux’s “The Mysterious Human Heart in New York” Aureate but spurred, the heart straps on her boots, bears the stickers, stomps away copperheads to catch her golden hour dalliance with the bluebonnets before evening mosquitos eclipse...

Recipe for Alienation

Put a raisin cake in the oven, and it’s very small. Then you let it go, and the distance between the raisins is like the distance between the galaxies—it gets larger and larger with time. —Neta Bahcall mix the dry ingredients. make a well in the middle. imagine diving...

Why I’m Saying No to Self-Publishing

I’ve been on a journey the past five years that some writers who come tantalizingly close to publication know all too well. From 2018-2022, I worked on a novel, paid thousands to a professional editor, another thousand for a lawyer’s opinion of my legal liability, and...