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 ›
mid-life crisis
Fireflies trapped in a jar, the days, prose
Some of the days flew by so fast, others you could trap in a jar. They were on the internet or in your computer on a spinning carousel, going back as far as you could right up to the present…. Read More ›
Portrait of a house cat eating a bird one Thursday
Charlotte and I sat at the breakfast nook eating frozen pizza and watching our cat Roxy eat a bird. I watched Charlotte watching Roxy for a few bites before she realized what Roxy was eating and was glad when she… Read More ›
The Larry Dugan complex
There were probably a dozen boys packed into that air-conditioned room at Kyle Gardo’s house in the early ’80s, the first time I saw porn, a lot of hair onscreen and squishing sounds, all of us rapt and speechless; it… Read More ›
32/30, more like 34
The jeans were getting harder to get into and the beers harder to get out of. The beers were getting easier to get into and the jeans to get out of. The reclining chair was bent and sagged but I pulled… Read More ›
When they slide that heavy rock slab across your lids where will you sit, with what you’ve done?
And were we like those same straps they used to hold up trees, that look like slingshots tied from the trunk to the post—were we that same post for our kids, meant to just stay there in the ground long… Read More ›
Winter’s playground is closed for the season
If you were to look back through a hole at your life, if it were like a kaleidoscope when held to the light, the days would fold in on themselves and combine, and collapse to form a frame called “your… Read More ›
Monday stop light meditation at the five-way
The kids were small enough then they didn’t have the wherewithal to complain or object, they just got in the car with the dog, the three of them in the back and me driving, Dawn saying isn’t this nice, and… Read More ›
Irregular verb patterns and dreams
I went on the side of the house that still feels like the country and had a leak there, spied the full moon through the trees out too many nights in a row now, bleary eyed and runny; I saw… Read More ›
A branch the size of an oar on a medieval slave ship
I worked a couple hours in the yard cleaning up branches and breaking down limbs clipping, sweeping, yanking out roots and pruning, stuff we probably should have done in the fall—then just got in the car and drove out to… Read More ›
Bill Pearse 