Jumping Rope in Fitler Square
One girl holds her end of the rope in both hands. Another holds the rope between her stuffed rabbit’s paws, pressed tightly against her chest. Together, they lift and shake the ends of the rope. It twiches and leaps with arbitrary abandon. The rabbit’s ears flop. A third girl, the eldest of the three, stands next to the epileptic rope and hops up and down as quickly as she can, squeeling with glee. Their mothers look on with weary despair. This isn’t the game they remember playing. What happened to the rules? And later, when they become teenagers? Oh, God. Heat Wave...
Read MoreCicadas
It was the new neighbors that made me plug my ears. They did it with crow’s caws and popgun bangs; with doors and cupboards; with heedless laughter that woke me but not my wife, and left me envious in the dark. Once awake, I’d roll back old stones and peer at the grubs and worms of memory and conscience. The hours spent hunting sadness passed quickly. Now the earplugs take up what is in my head and show it to the morning, adhesive and greedy for dust. They grow dingy gray and yellow from use. I cannot bring myself to wash them. The earplugs keep the neighbors out. But they do not bring...
Read MoreA Small, Green Piece of Paper
Six Degrees of Separation is a play and film written by John Guare about the conjecture that all people are linked by five intermediaries. Six Degrees of Separation is standard theatre fare. Most people have seen it once but probably don’ t go out of their way to see it twice. I recall the play introduced me to Kandinsky’s paintings. One afternoon, not far from the Sea Bus terminal in North Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, per chance my eye doctor mentioned he was visiting London for a short holiday. Since I had attended the English equivalent of high school in Chiswick, I...
Read MoreThe Last Ant
The Extinction of Cook’s Bi-Articulated Hairy-Legged Carpenter Ant Edward must have known he was the last of his kind. As Dr. Peterson, head of the Moore Labs, was fond of saying, “Dying is easy; lifting 32 times your own weight is difficult.” Nonetheless, no ant has ever been as pampered as this remnant of an obscure subspecies, his handling due entirely to the unusual circumstances of his life and death. We learned from Peterson that normally males die immediately after fertilizing a queen, and many do not make it to sexual maturity in an endangered colony, as...
Read MoreThe Mobile Classroom
Ten minutes into the first lesson I see one of our cars on the road. I’m not sure who is instructing, but it’s probably Thomas. I abandon my route for the moment and have my student turn each time Thomas does. Five minutes into this tailing, my driver asks, “Are we following that car?” “Yup,” I say, “it’s one of ours. You two want to have some fun?” “Sure,” the driver says. Her sister in the back keeps quiet. Thomas’s car turns left and we follow, maintaining our distance. “Now,” I say as we stalk our prey,...
Read MoreOut of Kentucky
My grandmother raised five kids herself. My mother is the little girl on the left, and she is the only one left living from this photo. My grandmother is the one seated in the chair. The little girl on the right is my aunt, who passed away a few years ago. The little boy is my uncle, who was killed by a train many years ago. My mother says the little bows in their hair were made from bread ties. The little outfits were hand sewn by my grandmother. To me, this is a most beautiful photo. It captures a proud mother who was also poor. It captures innocence. It captures simplicity. It...
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