Maybe it’s just the light but in that first picture of me I don’t look born as much as I do unearthed, the way dad’s holding me out like some product of an archaeological dig. Dad’s so young his beard… Read More ›
identity
Songs in the attic
This morning the fog was so thick on the plateau it blurred all the trees but when I got up the road you could see the very edge of it, like where the fog officially began or ended in the… Read More ›
Long division
When I woke I really didn’t know where I was. Still divided between two places, two time zones, two bedrooms. But there was the clock on the side of my bed anchoring me to this place: home-home. And after being… Read More ›
The pearly everlasting
We meet mom’s friend Helga for dinner at the Croatian guy Tony’s new restaurant and sit inside at the best table (“without shadows,” Tony says). It’s called Adriatic cuisine, which I take to mean Mediterranean, though my geography and culinary… Read More ›
The Slider
If there’s a brotherly love that can happen between men, I felt it most for my old Cajun friend Myki. And I think about him every Fat Tuesday when the Mardi Gras music starts, and wonder what he’s up to…. Read More ›
Dreams of being nude
The cat likes drinking out of the faucet and meets me in the bathroom at the same time every morning. She hops onto the sink, rubs the spout with her chin, makes a wet smacking sound as she laps. The… Read More ›
Don’t put on any airs when you’re down on Rue Morgue Avenue
Life had a way of folding in on itself, unraveling in bizarre and beautiful patterns. You could watch and feel like you were a part of the fold or outside of it, not living but still alive. The pattern was… Read More ›
Waning crescent
Here it was, my whole life splayed out before me. Some days, just for an instant, I felt like I could do anything. The problem was, it felt so good I dwelled in that feeling and did nothing at all…. Read More ›
Portrait of the artist as a portrait model
No one smiles in these old portraits. They look stiff, like they’re already dead. Maybe it’s the knowledge only portrait models have that makes them look like that, deciding how you’ll look forever. They look trapped in their own time…. Read More ›
When the pines begin to cry
It had been a long time since I heard the owls cry in the night. Last night in bed I counted three in the distance, a hoot-hoot with a menacing tone. It reminded me of waking in Marrakech to the… Read More ›
Bill Pearse 