What You Can’t See
South Vietnam — 1968 Clack went the shutter on my camera. The two South Vietnamese soldiers looked at one another, nodded and stepped back from the edge of the bomb crater. One pulled a cigarette from a pack in his breast pocket and lighted it. He offered one to his comrade, who shook his head and turned to look across the rice paddies toward the high ground, where a network of trees drew clean, black lines against the yellow sky. A hand squeezed my shoulder, and I looked up. The company commander tapped my camera with his finger and whispered, “Take any...
Read MoreNylon Rain
The rain comes down on nylon lines as nylon rain, each fiber-optic strand a light shine- shrine, and a vibrating way.
Read MoreA Love Story
Alex felt so doped up with painkillers and anxiety-reducing drugs that when they wheeled him into the operating room, he couldn’t worry, had he wanted to. The one thing he recalled was asking if his wife had been notified. A familiar voice whispered, “I’m here, honey. I’m here,” but too much was going on to make sense of anything. He saw bright lights and people in blue scrubs. Someone told him to count backwards from ten. He reached nine when a new calmness allowed him to block out the image of a car racing through a red light straight toward him. It seemed...
Read MoreThe Cage
because so many wondered what happened … A once beautiful bird sat on a post in a gilded cage. Her claws gripped the post on which she sat. Her cage was made of the finest material. Her days were spent in the dark, only catching a glimpse of the outside world. As the years passed, she could feel time slipping away. Her body aged and she was weak from her burdens. When her cage was uncovered for her regular feeding, the brilliant light blinded her to what the outside world offered. Her keeper, the Lord of the manor, insisted he knew best. Indeed, he was a very important...
Read MoreMolasses in January
My mother took a drag on a Pall Mall, exhaled, and told the story of my birth. These Boots Are Made for Walkin’ was playing on WJOY, and it was my fourth birthday. She proclaimed, “You were like molasses in January.” We were idling at a red light in a green station wagon on Main Street in Burlington, Vermont. I wasn’t yet familiar with the properties of molasses, but I knew it to be an important ingredient in ginger snaps; it seemed exotic, unlike maple syrup. The youngest, I was always beside her in the kitchen, watching, standing on a chair or peering over the counter, sticking my...
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