I couldn’t imagine getting rid of the African robes. Dawn’s on this kick now from a book where you categorically go through things to determine what brings you joy and if it doesn’t, you get rid of it. We’re putting… Read More ›
Memoir
Ballad for a dying bird one Sunday
I cradled the near-dead bird in my palm, it was the size of a chicken egg and felt warm, I could feel it breathing, though it had its eyes closed like it was wincing, fanning the air with its feet,… Read More ›
The day we thought we died
It was the first time I started my morning ritual but then stopped and just went back to bed. I got the coffee going, fed the animals, but it was still dark outside so I lay in bed another 20… Read More ›
Pledge made in Galway last December
I came down to the lake after I left my job and talked to the unemployment office on the cell phone. They said I was eligible for X dollars but just because you’re eligible doesn’t mean you’ll get it, you… Read More ›
On the way to Waterford
We dropped mom off at the airport in Cork, she flew back to Germany, and the rest of us carried on to Waterford, on the southern coast of Ireland. If the country is like the face of a clock, we… Read More ›
St. Stephen’s Day, west Cork, ’15
All the UPS drivers have gone home to their families with their shorts and their socks, and the gravel road out front is quiet tonight with no crunching of wheels or deliveries: the grocery store is closed but they’re getting… Read More ›
Sterling Hotel snapshot, 1992
I sat at the end of the bar with the bartender Robbie watching It’s A Wonderful Life, his favorite movie. It was snowing outside and the bar was basically closed. He wasn’t supposed to, but Robbie only charged me for… Read More ›
A low-melting alloy used for joining less fusible metals
When Ginger gets up in the morning and first stands she looks like a newborn fawn touching down, the legs wobbly, on stilts. But I don’t stretch, it’s the discomforts of my past I remember in my joints, stumbling down… Read More ›
The shoulder seasons
Friday, 9 Dec 16: mom looked out the front door and winced. Two hour snow delay but it all turned to rain, and now the lawn looks patchy and white like a grisly, old dog. Stayed up late watching it,… Read More ›
First night with the lights
The hail fell, a proxy for the snow, but the cold made the windows fogged around the edges like it was matted, and it took me back to that house in Bethlehem where we lived, that night it kept snowing… Read More ›
Bill Pearse 