The slow collapse of order brought me comfort, the release to chaos. The house in disarray with shoes everywhere and kids and unclaimed cups and odd dining hours (10 o’clock for dinner) that reminded me of our times in France… Read More ›
identity
First there is a mountain then there is no mountain, then there is
There was the outfit I’d worn the day before and probably the day before that, in a pile on the floor by the bed. I sat up and got into it like I was going in reverse, stood up, slapped… Read More ›
‘Reentry Burns,’ coming back to America
When I got back from Germany Dawn met me at the airport and we went for lunch at the brewhouse. The bathroom smelled the same as it always did and I think the bartender recognized me, even though we’d been… Read More ›
Bluetooth speaker inside rusted copper resonating bowl
Lily and I moved to opposite corners of the hot tub. Because it’s outside and we live in the Pacific Northwest, the underside of the cover attracts slugs and undesirable life. I’ve started using bromine tabs indiscriminately, I just dump… Read More ›
Do enough drugs and the trees will talk back
I don’t know why I have to drink beer when I brown beef but I just do. Maybe so I’m doing something other than drinking. I went back to my notes from Friday morning on Cougar Mountain with the dog,… Read More ›
Rain prose: going to work, to live
We were between fronts again. In the morning the sound of the birds seesawing the air in their rocking chair, rhythmic arcs: those sing-song loops like fireworks for wartime, warning cries, maybe just bliss. The air was damp from last… Read More ›
The fear to really be | what scares us most, about art
It had been many months since I went around the corner from our house to the new development. Why would I?—turning left instead of right, I could go down to the lake. Turning right, and right again, they’d taken out… Read More ›
“One more red nightmare”
Donnie said he forwarded my email to Fripp and would let me know if he heard back. I sent that to Loren, because I wasn’t sure I’d ever get an email like that again, that said “I forwarded your message… Read More ›
The Last of the Whiskey
Maybe it was the sub-tropically rooted atmospheric river we’re under in western Washington that put me in a funk with all this rain, all this weeping and draining and sagging and uprooting that got me encased in a work-induced death… Read More ›
‘Where the shadows run from themselves’
I got back in the slot, the cafeteria salad bar at work, tonged some shredded carrots, spinach, diced beets…made a modest bird’s nest out of it, weighed it, scanned my card, picked a two-top by the windows and started in…. Read More ›