Driving to Work

A critical fact in the world of 1801 was that nothing moved faster than the speed of a horse . . . no letter, no information, no idea, order, or instruction of any kind moved faster. Nothing ever had moved any faster, and as far as Jefferson’s contemporaries were able to tell, nothing ever [...]

On Remembering Dreams

I’ve been noticing my dreams lately and wondering if that is a good sign. Most nights—even on the restless nights—I remember nothing. Whatever internal untangling takes place in my sleep goes on unimpeded, and I’m reconciled in ways I didn’t know I needed reconciling. But not lately.
The [...]

Haiku Sonnet: Taking Confession

Schizophrenia
we enjoyed: saints and sinners
struggling with Father’s
breath, profiled portraits
slipping via dim lattice
into our side of
the box. We whispered
the way we heard echoes
whisper, squeezed out crimes
kneeling on brocade,
and squirmed. We never forgot
the line outside—knees
jostled switches, prodding bulbs
to pulse: green, red, green.

To My Sibs

I hesitate to tell family stories. As the fourth of five children, the second of three sons with two sisters before me, I offer anecdotes that come in at least four other versions.
My siblings already think of me as an embellisher.
Still, I like my versions. Retelling a story [...]

Haiku Sonnet: The Death of the Unknown MFA

The writer perished
repeating “opus” after
a morning grooming
vowels and fricatives.
Brilliance emerged from his mind
like French poodles from
fur, and his body
combusted. The pages flew,
littered with scribbles
like droppings. The work
is interred with the artist,
no piece worth saving,
no other writer’s words worth
gracing the tombstone.

The Circular Road

As a former Catholic, I know how to sell confession—confess sinfulness to clear the way for salvation. However, as with many moral compulsions, the negative argument seems more potent—not confessing means you won’t see the sin, you won’t feel it, you won’t overcome it.
Iniquity is the essential truth.
The confessionals in my [...]

Haiku Sonnet: Passing Time at Scrabble

Tiles in the travel
Scrabble fall deftly into
their plastic frames.
They resist nonsense.
They want to make words, but I
won’t let them because
I know all fair words
long to be right—nuance is
their last afterthought.
And I insist on
melting syllables to forge
my hopeless alloys.
“Sneckly” should be a word—you
ought to accept it

Does Writing MAKE Us Lie?

Vivian Gornick once delivered a talk at Goucher College about writing memoir. She fielded an innocent question, “How can you so precisely recall conversations with your mother?” She answered just as innocently, that she didn’t remember. She recollected some of what she reported and the spirit of [...]

Haiku Sonnet: Imagining My Father

On his son’s birth night,
walking to the parking lot,
he saw the sky as
it must have been once—
the Milky Way’s real splendor,
a field full of life’s
illumination—
back when stars were seeds strewn to
overpopulate—
and he stopped to look
for another speck, his dim
imagination
and hope, projected into
the happy unknown.

Mr. Caulfield, American Hero

In teaching Catcher in the Rye, I see readers contest Holden. He is either an A.D.D.-addled, self-pitying rich boy or a victim of loss and neglect. He is a polarizing force.
American literature seems filled with these figures—people who make us uncomfortable or whom we can’t quite embrace: my [...]